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SUPREME COUNCIL, 33‘ 

A...A...S.-.R... 

Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A. 
Washington, D.G. 

Class No.'IIN tv 


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SPECIAL EDITION, LIMITED TO 
ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND COPIES 


CALEB WEST 

MASTER DIVER 


HOPKINSON SMITH 

UTHOR OF “Colonel Carter of Cartersville,” “Tom 
Grogan,” “A Day at Daguerre’s,” “A Gentle- 
man Vagabond,” etc. 



NEW YORK 

INTERNATIONAL BOOK AND 
PUBLISHING COMPANY 
1899 




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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER page 

I. The Cape Ann Sloop i 

II. A Morning’s Mail 12 

III. Captain Brandt at the Throttle ... 24 

IV. Among the Blackfish and Tomcods . . 42 

V. Aunty Bell’s Kitchen 60 

VI. A Little Dinner for Five .... 76 

VII. Betty’s First Patient 103 

VIII. The “Heave Ho” of Lonny Bowles . . 122 

IX. What the Butcher saw 139 

X. Strains from Bock’s ’Cello .... 162 

■ XI. Captain Joe’s Telegram 181 

XH. Captain Joe’s Creed ...... 194 

XHI. A Shanty Door 210 

XIV. Two Envelopes ....... 225 

XV. A Narrow Path 236 

XVI. Under the Willows 259 

XVH. The Song of the Fire 269 

XVHI. The Equinoctial Gale 275 

XIX. From the Lantern Deck 284 

XX. At the Pines 300 

XXI. The Record of Nickles, the Cook . . . 319 

XXH. After the Battle 334 

XXHI. A Broken Draw 341 

XXIV. The Swinging Gate 351 

XXV. Under the Pitiless Stars 359 

XXVI. Caleb trims his Lights 373 



CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


CHAPTER I 

THE CAPE ANN SLOOP 

The rising sun burned its way through a 
low-lying mist that hid the river, and flashed 
its search-light rays over the sleeping city. The 
blackened tops of the tall stacks caught the 
signal, and answered in belching clouds of gray 
steam that turned to gold as they floated up- 
wards in the morning air. The long rows of 
the many-eyed tenements cresting the hill 
blinked in the dazzling light, threw wide their 
shutters, and waved curling smoke flags from 
countless chimneys. 

Narrow, silent alleys awoke. Doors opened 
and shut. Single figures swinging dinner- 
pails, and groups of girls with baskets, hurried 
to and fro. The rumbling of carts was heard 
and shrill street cries. 

Suddenly the molten ball swung clear of the 
purple haze and flooded the city with tremu- 
lous light. The vanes of the steeples flashecl 


2 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

and blazed. The slanting roofs, wet with the 
night dew, glistened like silver. The budding 
trees, filling the great squares, flamed pink and 
yellow, their tender branches quivering in the 
rosy light. 

Now long, deep-toned whistles — reveille of 
forge, spindle, and press — startled the air. 
Surging crowds filled the thoroughfares ; pant- 
ing horses tugged at the surface cars ; cabs 
rattled over the cobblestones, and loaded trucks 
began to block the crossings. 

The great city was astir. 

At the sun’s first gleam, Henry Sanford had 
waked with joyous start. Young, alert, full 
of health and courage as he was, the touch of 
its rays never came too early for him. To-day 
they had been like the hand of a friend, rousing 
him with promises of good fortune. 

Dressing with eager haste, he had hurried 
into the room adjoining his private apartments, 
which served as his uptown business office. 
Important matters awaited him. Within a few 
hours a question of vital moment had to be 
decided, — one upon which the present success 
of his work depended. 

As he entered, the sunshine, pouring through 
the wide windows, fell across a drawing-table 
covered with the plans of the lighthouse he 
was then building ; illumined a desk piled high 
with correspondence, and patterned a wall upon 
which were hung photographs and sketches of 


THE CAPE ANN SLOOP 3 

the various structures which had marked the 
progress of his engineering career. 

But it was toward a telegram lying open on 
his desk that Sanford turned. He took it in 
his hand and read it with the quiet satisfaction 
of one who knows by heart every line he 
studies. It was headed Keyport, and ran as 
follows : — 

To Henry Sanford, C. E., Washington 
Square, New York. 

Cape Ann sloop arrived and is a corker. 
Will be at your uptown office in the morning. 

Joseph Bell. 

‘‘Dear old Captain Joe, he’s found her at 
last ! ” he said to himself, and laughed aloud. 

With a joyous enthusiasm that lent a spring 
and vitality to every movement, he stepped 
to the window and raised the sash to let in the 
morning air. 

It was a gala-day for the young engineer. 
For months Captain Joe had been in search of 
a sloop of peculiar construction, — one of so 
light a draught that she could work in a rolling 
surf, and yet so stanch that she could sustain 
the strain of a derrick-boom rigged to her mast. 
Without such a sloop the building of the light- 
house Sanford was then constructing for the 
government on Shark Ledge, lying eight miles 
from Keyport, and breasting a tide running six 


4 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

miles an hour, could not go on. With such a 
sloop its early completion was assured. 

The specifications for this lighthouse pro- 
vided that the island which formed its base 
— an artificial one made by dumping rough 
stones over the sunken rock known as Shark’s 
Ledge — should be protected not only from 
sea action, but from the thrust of floating ice. 
This Sanford was to accomplish by paving its 
under-water slopes with huge granite blocks, 
to form an enrockment, — each block to be 
bedded by a diver. 

The engineer-in-chief of the Lighthouse 
Board at Washington had expressed grave 
doubts as to the practicability of the working 
methods submitted by Sanford for handling 
these blocks, questioning whether a stone 
weighing twelve tons could be swung over- 
board, as suggested by him, from the deck of a 
vessel and lowered to a diver while the boat 
was moored in a six-mile current. As, how- 
ever, the selection of the means to be employed 
lay with the contracting engineer, and not with 
the Board, Sanford’s working plans had finally 
been approved. He had lacked only a sloop to 
carry them out. This sloop Captain Joe had 
now found. 

No wonder, then, that the splendor of the 
early sunshine had seemed a harbinger of suc- 
cess, nor that as the minutes flew his eagerness 
increased to grasp the captain’s hand. 


THE CAPE ANN SLOOP 


5 


At the first sound of his heavy step in the 
hall outside, Sanford sprang from his desk and 
threw the door wide open to welcome the big, 
burly fellow, — comrade and friend for years, 
as well as foreman and assistant engineer on 
his force. 

“ Are you sure she ’ll handle the stones } ” 
were the first words he addressed to the cap- 
tain, — there were no formalities between these 
men. Nothing but a ten-horse engine, re- 
member, will lift them from the dock. What ’s 
the sloop’s beam ” 

Thirty foot over all, an’ she ’s stiff as a 
church,” answered Captain Joe, all out of breath 
with his run up the stairs, — pushing his 
Derby hat back from his forehead as he spoke. 
“ An’ her cap’n ain’t no slouch, nuther. I see 
him yesterday ’fore I come down. Looks ’s ef 
he hed th’ right stuff in him. Says he ain’t 
afeard o’ th’ Ledge, an’ don’t mind layin’ her 
broadside on, even ef she does git a leetle mite 
scraped.” 

How’s her boiler.^” Sanford asked, with 
sudden earnestness. 

“I ain’t looked her b’iler over yit, but her 
cylinders is big enough. If her steam gives 
out, I ’ll put one of our own aboard. She ’ll 
do, sir. Don’t worry a mite ; we ’ll spank that 
baby when we git to ’t,” — and his leathery, 
weather-tanned face cracked into smiles. 

Sanford laughed again. The cheerful humor 


6 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

of this man, whose judgment of men never 
failed him, and whose knowledge of sea-things 
made him invaluable, was always a tonic to 
him. 

I ’m glad you like her skipper,” he said, 
taking from a pigeonhole in his perfectly ap- 
pointed desk, as he spoke, the charter-party of 
the sloop, I see his name is Brandt, and the 
sloop’s name is the Screamer. Hope she ’ll 
live up to her name. The charter-party, I 
think, ought to contain some allusion to the 
coast-chart, in case of any protest Brandt may 
make afterwards about the shoaliness of the 
water. Better have him put his initials on the 
chart,” he added, with the instinctive habit of 
caution which always distinguished his busi- 
ness methods. “ Do you think the shallow 
water round the Ledge will scare him ? ” he 
continued, as he crossed the room to a row 
of shelves fifled with mechanical drawings, in 
search of a round tin case holding the various 
charts of Long Island Sound. 

Captain Joe did not answer Sanford’s ques- 
tion at once. His mind was on something else. 
He took off his hat and pea-jacket, hung them 
on a hook, moved back the pile of books from 
the middle of the table, with as little consider- 
ation as he would have shown to so many bricks, 
corked a bottle of liquid ink for safety, flattened 
with his big hands the chart which Sanford 
had unrolled, weighted its four corners with a 


THE CAPE ANN SLOOP 


7 


T square and some color-pans, and then, bend- 
ing his massive head, began studying its details 
with all the easy confidence of a first officer 
on a Cunarder. 

As he leaned over the chart the sunlight 
played about his face and brought into stronger 
relief the few gray hairs which silvered the 
short brown curls crisped about his neck and 
temples. These hairs betrayed the only change 
seen in him since the memorable winter’s day 
when he had saved the lives of the passengers 
on the sinking ferry-boat near Hoboken by 
calking with his own body the gash left in her 
side by a colliding tug. But time had touched 
him nowhere else. He was still the same 
broad-as-he-was-long old sea-dog ; tough, sturdy, 
tender-eyed, and fearless. His teeth were as 
white, his mouth was as firm, his jaw as strong 
and determined. 

The captain placed his horn-tipped finger on 
a dot marked “ Shark’s Ledge Spindle,” oblit- 
erating in the act some forty miles of sea- 
space ; repeated to himself in a low voice. 
Six fathoms — four — one and a half — hum, 
’t ain’t nothin’ ; that Cape Ann sloop can do 
it and then suddenly remembering Sanford’s 
question, he answered, with quick lifting of his 
head and with a cheery laugh, “ Skeer him ? 
Wait till ye see him, sir. And he won’t make 
no nuther. He ain’t that kind.” 

When the coast -chart had been rolled up 


8 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

and replaced in the tin case, to be taken to 
Keyport for the skipper’s initials, both men 
resumed their seats by Sanford’s desk. By this 
time some of the young engineer’s enthusiasm 
over the finding of the sloop had begun to cool. 
He seemed, as he sat there, a different man, as 
with businesslike address he turned to the dis- 
cussion of various important details connected 
with the work. 

Anything left of the old house, captain.?” 
he asked, taking from the table a rough sketch 
of the new shanty to be built on the Ledge, 
— the one used while the artificial island was 
being built having been injured by the winter 
storms. 

*‘Not much, sir : one side’s stove in an’ the 
roof’s smashed. Some o’ the men are in it 
now, gittin’ things in shape, but it ’s purty 
rickety. I ’m a-goin’ to put the new one here,” 
= — his finger on the drawing, — ‘^an’ I ’m goin’ 
to make it o’ tongue-an’-grooved stuff an’ tar 
the roof to git it water-tight. Then I ’ll hev 
some iron bands made with turnbuckles to go 
over the top timbers an’ fasten it all down in 
the stone-pile. Oh, we ’ll git her so she ’ll stay 
put when hell breaks loose some night down 
Montauk way ! ” and another hearty laugh rang 
out, shaking the captain’s brawny chest, as he 
rolled up the drawing and tucked it in the case 
for safety. 

“There’s no doubt we’ll have plenty of 


THE CAPE ANN SLOOP 


9 


that,” said Sanford, with a slight touch of anx- 
iety in his tones. “ And now about the work- 
ing force. Will you make many changes ? ” 
he asked. 

“ No, sir. We ’ll put Caleb West in charge 
of the divin’ ; ain’t no better man ’n Caleb in 
er out a dress. Them enrockments is mighty 
ugly things to set under water, an’ I won’t 
trust nobody but Caleb to do it. Lonny 
Bowles ’ll help tend derricks ; an’ there ’s our 
regular gang, — George Nickles an’ the rest of 
’em. I only got one new man so far : that ’s a 
young feller named Bill Lacey. He looks like 
a skylarkin’ chap, but I kin take \hat out o’ 
him. He kin climb like a cat, an’ we want 
a man like that to shin the derricks. He’s 
tended divers, too, he says, an’ he ’ll do to look 
after Caleb’s life-line an’ hose when I can’t. 
By the way, sir, I forgot to ask ye about them 
derricks. We got to hev four whackin’ big 
sticks to set them big stone on top o’ the con- 
crete when we git it finished, an’ there ain’t 
no time to lose on ’em. I thought maybe 
ye ’d order ’em to-da}^ from Medford } ” 

While Sanford was writing a telegram to a 
shipbuilder at Medford ordering “four clean, 
straight, white pine masts not less than twenty 
inches at the butt,” and delivering it to his 
negro servant, Sam, whom he called from the 
adjoining room. Captain Joe had arisen from his 
chair and had taken down his pea-jacket and 


10 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Derby hat, without which he never came to New 
York, — it was his one concession to metro- 
politan exactions : the incongruity between the 
pea-jacket and the Derby hat always delighted 
* Sanford. 

“But, Captain Joe,” said Sanford, looking 
up, “you must n’t go ; breakfast will be ready 
in a minute. Young Mr. Hardy is coming, 
whom you met here once before. He wants 
to meet you again.” 

“ Not this mornin’, sir. I ’ve got a lot o’ 
things to look after ’fore I catch the three-ten. 
I ’m obleeged to ye all the same,” and he 
humped his arms and shoulders into his 
weather-beaten pea-jacket and picked up the 
tin case. 

“ Well, I wish you would,” said Sanford, 
with a hand on the captain’s shoulder, and 
real disappointment in his tone, “but you 
know best, I suppose.” 

With the big brown hand of the captain in 
his own he followed him to the top of the stairs, 
where he stood watching the burly figure de- 
scending the spiral staircase, the tin case un- 
der his arm, spy-glass fashion. 

“ You ’ll see me in the morning, captain,” 
Sanford called out, not wanting him to go with- 
out another word. “ I ’ll come by the midnight 
train.” 

The captain looked up and waved his hand 
cheerily in lieu of a reply. 


THE CAPE ANN SLOOP 


II 


Sanford waited until the turn of the staircase 
hid him from view, then turned, and, drawing 
the heavy curtains of the vestibule, passed 
through it to his private apartments, flooded 
with the morning light. 


CHAPTER II 


A morning’s mail 

Sanford dropped into a brown leather 
chair, and Sam, with the fawning droop of a 
water-spaniel, placed the morning paper before 
him, moved a small table nearer, on which his 
master could lay the morning’s mail as it was 
opened, adjusted the curtains so as to keep the 
glare from his paper, and with noiseless tread 
withdrew to the kitchen. Whatever the faults 
of this product of reconstruction might have 
been, — and Sam had many, — neglect of 
Sanford’s comfort was not one of them. 

According to his lights he was scrupulously 
honest. Although he dressed with more care 
on Sunday afternoons than his master, — gen- 
erally in that gentleman’s cast-off clothes, and 
always in his discarded neckties and gloves, 
— smoked his tobacco, purloined his cigars, 
and occasionally drank his wine, whenever the 
demands of his social life made such inroads 
on Sanford’s private stock necessary to main- 
tain a certain prestige among his ebonized 
brethren, he invariably drew the line at his mas- 
ter’s loose change and his shirt-studs. This 


A MORNING’S MAIL 


13 


was due, doubtless, to some drops of blood, 
trickling through his veins and inherited from 
an old family butler of an ancestor, which, 
while they permitted him the free use of every- 
thing his master ate, drank, and wore, — a com- 
mon privilege of the slave days, — debarred him 
completely from greater crimes. 

His delinquencies — all of them perfectly 
well known to Sanford — never lost him his 
master’s confidence : he knew the race, and 
never expected the impossible. Not only did 
he place Sam in charge of his household ex- 
penditures, but he gave him entire supervision 
as well of his rooms and their contents. 

In these apartments Sam took the greatest 
pride. They were at the top of one of those 
old-fashioned, hip -roofed, dormer- windowed 
- houses still to be found on Washington Square, 
and consisted of five rooms, with dining-room 
and salon. 

Against the walls of the salon stood low book- 
cases, their tops covered with curios and the 
hundred and one knickknacks that encumber 
a bachelor’s apartment. Above these again 
hung a collection of etchings and sketches in 
and out of frames, many of them signed by fel- 
low members of the Buzzards, a small Bohemian 
club of ten who often held their meetings here. 

Under a broad frieze ran a continuous shelf, 
holding samples of half the pots of the uni- 
verse, from a Heidelberg beer-mug to an East 


14 


CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Indian water-jar ; and over the doors were 
grouped bunches of African arrows, spears, 
and clubs, and curious barbaric shields ; while 
the centre of the room was occupied by a square 
table covered with books and magazines, ash- 
trays, Japanese ivories, and the like. Set in 
among them was an umbrella - lamp with a 
shade of sealing-wax red. At intervals about 
the room were smaller tables, convenient for 
decanters and crushed ice, and against the 
walls, facing the piano, were wide divans piled 
high with silk cushions, and near the window 
which opened on a balcony overlooking the 
square stood a carved Venetian wedding-chest, 
which Sanford had picked up on one of his 
trips abroad. 

Within easy reach of reading-lamp and chair 
rested a four-sided bookcase on rollers, filled 
with works on engineering and books of refer- 
ence ; while a high, narrow c^se between two 
doors was packed with photographs and engrav- 
ings of the principal marine structures of our 
own and other coasts. It was at once the room 
of a man of leisure and a man of work. 

Late as was the season, a little wood fire 
smouldered in the open fireplace, — one of the 
sentiments to which Sanford clung, — while 
before it stood the browp leather chair in which 
he sat. 

“ I forgot to say that Captain Bell will not 
be here to breakfast, Sam, but Mr. Hardy is 


A MORNING’S MAIL 


5 


coming,” said Sanford, suddenly recollecting 
himself. 

“Yaas, sah ; everything’s ready, sah,” re- 
plied Sam, who, now that the telegram had 
been dispatched and the morning papers and 
letters delivered, had slipped into his white 
jacket again. 

Sanford picked up the package of letters, a 
dozen or more, and began cutting the en- 
velopes. Most of them were read rapidly, 
marked in the margin, and laid in a pile 
beside him. There were two which he had 
placed by themselves without opening : one 
from his friend Mrs. Morgan Leroy, and the 
other from Major Tom Slocomb, of Pocomoke, 
Maryland. 

Major Slocomb wrote to inform him of his 
approaching visit to New York, accompanied 
by his niece. Miss Helen Shirley, of ’Kent 
County, — a daughter, sir, of Colonel Talbot 
Shirley, one of our foremost citizens, whom I 
believe you had the honor of meeting during 
your never-to-be-forgotten visit among us.” 

The never-to-be-forgotten visit was one that 
Sanford had made the major the winter before, 
when he was inspecting the site for a stone 
and brush jetty he was about to build for the 
government, in the Chesapeake, near those 
famous estates which the Pocomokian inherited 
from his wife, “the widow of Major Talbot, 
suh.” 


i6 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

During this visit the major had greatly en- 
deared himself to the young engineer. Under 
all the Pocomokian’s veneer of delightful 
mendacity, utter shiftlessness, and luxurious 
extravagance, Sanford had discovered certain 
qualities of true loyalty to those whom he loved, 
and a very tender sympathy for the many in the 
world worse off than himself. He had become 
convinced too that the major’s conversion from 
a vagabond with gentlemanly instincts to a 
gentleman with strong Bohemian tendencies 
might easily be accomplished were a little 
more money placed at the Pocomokian’s dis- 
posal. With an endless check-book and un- 
limited overdrafts, settlements to be made 
every hundred years, the major would be a 
prince among men. 

The niece to whom the major referred in 
his letter lived in an adjoining county with a 
relative much nearer of kin. Like many other 
possessions of this acclimated Marylander, she 
was really not his niece at all, but another her- 
itage from his deceased wife. The major first 
saw her on horseback, in a neat-fitting riding- 
habit which she had made out of some blue 
army kersey bought at the country store. 
One glance at her lovely face, the poise of 
her head, the easy grace of her seat, and her 
admirable horsemanship decided him at once. 
Henceforward her name was to be emblazoned 
on the scroll of his family tree ! 


A MORNING’S MAIL 


17 


It was not until Sanford had finished the 
major’s letter that he turned to that from Mrs. 
Leroy. He looked first at the circular post- 
mark to see the exact hour at which it had 
been mailed ; then he rose from the big chair, 
threw himself on the divan, tucked a pillow 
under his head, and slowly broke the seal. 
The envelope was large and square, decorated 
with the crest of the Leroys in violet wax, and 
addressed in a clear, round, almost masculine 
hand. “My dear Henry,” it began, “if you 
are going to the Ledge, please stop at Medford 
and see how my new dining-room is getting 
on. Be sure to come to luncheon to-morrow, 
so we can talk it over,” etc., and ended with 
the hope that he had not taken cold when he 
left her house the night before. 

It had contained but half a dozen lines, and 
was as direct as most of her communications ; 
yet Sanford held it for a long time in his 
hands, read and re-read it, looked at the head- 
ing, examined the signature, turned it over 
carefully, and, placing it in its envelope, thrust 
it under the sofa-pillow. With his hands be- 
hind his head he lay for some time in thought. 
Then taking Mrs. Leroy’s letter from under 
the pillow, he read it again, put it in his pocket, 
and began pacing the room. 

The letter had evidently made him restless. 
He threw wide the sashes of the French win- 
dow which opened on the iron balcony, and 


i8 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

looked for a moment over the square below, 
where the hard, pen-line drawing of its trees 
was blurred by the yellow-green bloom of the 
early spring. He turned back into the room, 
rearranged a photograph or two on the mantel, 
and, picking up a vase filled with roses, inhaled 
their fragrance and placed them in the centre 
of the dainty breakfast-table, with its snowy 
linen and polished silver, that Sam had just 
been setting near him. Reseating himself in 
his chair, he called again to the ever watchful 
darky, who had been following his movements 
through the crack of the pantry door. 

“ Sam.” 

“Yaas, ’r,” came a voice apparently from 
the far end of the pantry; “cornin’, sah.” 

“ Look over the balcony again and see if 
Mr. Hardy is on his way across the square. 
Why! what’s become of the fellow.?” he said 
to himself, consulting the empire clock with 
broken columns which decorated the mantel. 
“ It ’s after ten now. I ’ll wager Helen wrote 
him by the same mail. No wonder he ’s late. 
Let me see I She gets here in three days. Jack 
will be out of his head.” And Sanford sighed. 

“ I ’spec’s dat ’s him a-comin’ up now, sah,” 
Sam called. “ I yeared de downstairs do’ 
click a minute ago. Here he is, sah,” drawing 
aside the curtain that hid the entrance to the 
outer hall. 

“ Sorry, old man,” came a voice increasing 


A MORNING’S MAIL 


. 19 


in distinctness as the speaker approached, 
“ but I could n’t help it. I had a lot of letters 
to answer this morning, or I should have been 
on time. It don’t make any difference to you ; 
it ’s your day off.” 

“ My day off, is it } I was out of bed this 
morning at six o’clock. Captain Joe stopped 
here on his way from the train ; he has just 
left ; and if you had stayed away a minute more, 
I ’d have breakfasted without you. And that 
is n’t all. That sloop I ’ve been looking for 
has arrived, and I go to Keyport to-night.” 

“The devil you do ! ” said Jack, a shade of 
disappointment crossing his face. That 
means, I suppose, you won’t be back this 
spring. How long are you going to be build- 
ing that lighthouse, anyhow, Henry ? ” 

“ Two years more, I ’m afraid,” said Sanford 
thoughtfully. “ Breakfast right away, Sam. 
Take the seat by the window. Jack. I thought 
we ’d breakfast here instead of in the dining- 
room ; the air ’s fresher.” 

Jack opened his coat, took a rose from the 
vase, adjusted it in his buttonhole, and spread 
his napkin over his knees. 

He was much the younger of the two men, 
and his lot in life had been far easier. Junior 
partner in a large banking-house down town, 
founded and still sustained by the energy and 
business tact of his father, with plenty of time 
for all the sports and pastimes popular with 


20 , CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

men of his class, he had not found it a difficult 
task to sail easily through life without a jar. 

“ What do you hear from Crab Island, 
Jack } ” asked Sanford, a sly twinkle in his eye, 
as he passed him the muffins. 

“They’ve started the new club-house,” said 
Jack, with absolute composure. “We are go- 
ing to run out that extension you suggested 
when you were down there last winter.” He 
clipped his egg lightly, without a change of 
countenance. 

“ Anything from Helen Shirley ? ” 

“Just a line, thanking me for the magazines,” 
Jack answered in a casual tone, not the faint- 
est interest betraying itself in the inflections 
of his voice. Sanford thought he detected a 
slight increase of color on his young friend’s 
always rosy cheeks, but he said nothing. 

“ Did she say anything about coming to 
New York.?” Sanford asked, looking at Jack 
quizzically out of the corner of his eye. 

“Yes ; now I come to think of it, I believe 
she did say something about the major’s com- 
ing, but nothing very definite.” 

Jack spoke as if he had been aroused from 
some reverie entirely foreign to the subject 
under discussion. He continued to play with 
his egg, flecking off the broken bits of shell 
with the point of his spoon. With all his pre- 
tended composure, however, he could not raise 
his eyes to those of his host. 


A MORNING’S MAIL 21 

“What a first-class fraud you are, Jack!” 
said Sanford, laughing at last. He leaned back 
in his chair and looked at Hardy good-hu- 
moredly from under his eyebrows. “ I would 
have read you Slocomb's letter, lying right be- 
fore you, if I had n’t been sure you knew every- 
thing in it. Helen and the major will be here 
next week, and you know the very hour she ’ll 
arrive, and you have staked out every moment 
of her time. Now don’t try any of your high- 
daddy tricks on me. What are you going to do 
next Tuesday night ” 

Jack laughed, but made no attempt to parry a 
word of Sanford’s thrust. He looked up at last 
inquiringly over his plate and said, “ Why ? ” 

“ Because I want you to dine here with them. 
I ’ll ask Mrs. Leroy to chaperon Helen. Le- 
roy is still abroad, and she can come. We ’ll 
get Bock, too, with his ’cello. What other 
ladies are in town ? ” 

Jack’s face was aglow in an instant. The 
possibility of dining in Sanford’s room, with 
its background of rich color and with all its 
pretty things that Helen he knew would love 
so well, lent instant interest to Sanford’s pro- 
position. He looked about him. He made up 
his mind just where he would seat her after 
dinner : the divan nearest the curtains was the 
best. How happy she would be, and how new 
it would all be to her ! He could have planned 
nothing more delightful. Then remembering 


22 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

that Sanford had asked him a question, he 
recovered himself and nonchalantly gave the 
names of several young women he knew who 
might be agreeable guests. But after a mo- 
ment’s reflection he suggested as a second 
thought that Sanford leave these details to Mrs. 
Leroy. Jack knew her tact, and he knew to a 
nicety just how many young girls Mrs. Leroy 
would bring. The success of bachelor dinners, 
from Hardy’s present standpoint, was not de- 
pendent upon the attendance of half a dozen 
extra young women and two men ; quite the 
reverse. 

The date for the dinner arranged, and the 
wisdom of leaving the list of guests to Mrs. 
Leroy agreed upon, the talk drifted into other 
channels : the Whistler pastels at Klein’s ; the 
garden-party to be given at Mrs. Leroy’s 
country-seat near Medford when the new din- 
ing-room was finished and the roses were in 
bloom ; the opportunity Sanford might now 
enjoy of combining business with pleasure, 
Medford being a short run from Shark Ledge ; 
the success of Smearly’s last portrait at the 
Academy, a photograph of which lay on the 
table ; the probable change in Slocomb’s for- 
tunes, now that, with the consent of the insur- 
ance company who held the mortgage, he had 
rented what was left .of the Widow Talbot’s 
estate to a strawberry planter from the North, 
in order to live in New York ; and finally, 


A MORNING’S MAIL 


23 


under Jack’s guidance, back to Helen Shirley’s 
visit. 

When the two men, an hour later, passed 
into the corridor, Sanford held two letters in 
his hand ready to mail : one addressed to 
Major Slocomb, with an inclosure to Miss 
Shirley, the other to Mrs. Morgan Leroy. 

Sam watched them over the balcony until 
they crossed the square, cut a double shuffle 
with both feet, admired his black grinning face 
in the mirror, took a corncob pipe from the 
shelf in the pantry, filled it with some of San- 
ford’s best tobacco, and began packing his 
master’s bag for the night train to Keyport. 


CHAPTER 111 


CAPTAIN BRANDT AT THE THROTTLE 

The sun was an hour high when Sanford 
arrived at Keyport and turned quickly toward 
the road leading from the station to Captain 
Joe’s cottage, a spring and lightness in his step 
which indicated not only robust health, but an 
eagerness to reach at once the work absorbing 
his mind. When he gained the high ground 
overlooking the cottage and dock, he paused 
for a view that always charmed him with its 
play of light and color over sea and shore, and 
which seemed never so beautiful as in the early 
morning light. 

Below him lay Keyport Village, built about 
a rocky half-moon of a harbor, its old wharves 
piled high with rotting oil-barrels and flanked 
by empty warehouses, behind which crouched 
low, gray-roofed cabins, squatting in a tangle 
of streets, with here and there a white church 
spire tipped with a restless weather-vane. 
Higher, on the hills, were nestled some old 
homesteads with sloping roofs and wide porches, 
and away up on the crest of the heights, over- 
looking the sea, stood the more costly struc- 


CAPTAIN BRANDT AT THE THROTTLE 25 

tures with well - shaved lawns spotted with 
homesick trees from a warmer clime, their 
arms stretched appealingly toward the sea. 

At his feet lay the brimming harbor itself, 
dotted with motionless yachts and various fish- 
ing-craft, all reflected upside down in the still 
sea, its glassy surface rippled now and then by 
the dipping buckets of men washing down the 
decks, or by the quick water-spider strokes of 
some lobster-fisherman, — the click of the row- 
locks pulsating in the breathless morning air. 

On the near point of the half-moon stood Key- 
port Light, — an old-fashioned factory chimney 
of a Light, — built of brick, but painted snow- 
white with a black cigar band around its middle, 
its top surmounted by a copper lantern. This 
flashed red and white at night, over a radius 
of twenty miles. Braced up against its base, 
for a better hold, was a little building hiding a 
great fog-horn, which on thick days and nights 
bellowed out its welcome to Keyport’s best. 

On the far point of the moon — the one 
opposite the Light, and some two miles away, 
— stretched sea-meadows broken with clumps 
of rock and shelter-houses for cattle, and be- 
tween these two points, almost athwart the 
mouth of the harbor, like a huge motionless 
whale lay Crotch Island, its backbone knotted 
with summer cottages. Beyond the' island 
away out under the white glare of the risen sun 
could be seen a speck of purplish -gray fringed 


26 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

with bright splashes of spray glinting in the 
dazzling light. This was Shark’s Ledge. 

As Sanford looked toward the site of the 
new Light a strange sensation came over him. 
There lay the work on which his reputation 
would rest and by which he would hereafter 
be judged. Everything else he had so far 
accomplished was, he knew, but a preparation 
for this his greatest undertaking. Not only 
were the engineering problems involved new 
to his experience, but in his attitude in regard 
to them he had gone against all precedents as 
well as against the judgments of older heads, 
and had relied almost exclusively upon Captain 
Joe’s personal skill and pluck. While it was 
true that he never doubted his ultimate success, 
there always came a tugging at his heartstrings 
and a tightening of his throat whenever he 
looked toward the site of the lighthouse. 

Turning from the scene with a long drawn 
breath, he walked with slackened step down 
the slope that led to the long dock fronting the 
captain’s cottage. As he drew nearer he saw 
that the Screamer had been moored between 
the captain’s dock (always lumbered with para- 
phernalia required for sea-work) and the great 
granite-wharf, which was piled high with enor- 
mous cubes of stone, each as big as two pianos. 

On her forward deck was bolted a hoisting- 
engine, and thrust up through the hatch of the 
forecastle was the smoke-stack of the boiler, 


CAPTAIN BRANDT AT THE THROTTLE 27 

already puffing trial feathers of white steam into 
the morning air. She had, too, the heavy boom 
and stout mast used as a derrick. Captain Joe 
had evidently seen no reason to change his mind 
about her, for he was at the moment on her 
after-deck, overhauling a heavy coil of manilla 
rope, and reeving it in the block himself, the 
men standing by to catch the end of the line. 

When Sanford joined the group there was 
no general touching of hats, — outward sign 
of deference that a group of laborers on land 
would have paid their employer. In a certain 
sense, each man here was chief. Each man 
knew his duty and did it, quietly, effectually, 
and cheerfully. The day’s work had no limit 
of hours. The pay was never fixed by a board 
of delegates, one half of whom could not tell a 
marlinespike from a monkey-wrench. These 
men had enlisted for a war with winds and 
storms and changing seas, and victory meant 
something more to them than pay once a month 
and plum duff once a week. It meant hours 
of battling with the sea, of tugging at the lines, 
waist-deep in the boiling surf that rolled in from 
Montauk. It meant constant, unceasing vigi- 
lance day and night, in order that some exposed 
site necessary for a bedstone might be captured 
and held before a southeaster could wreck it, 
and thus a vantage-point be lost in the laying 
of the masonry. 

Each man took his share of wet and cold 


28 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

and exposure without grumbling. When, by 
some accident, a cowardly and selfish spirit 
joined the force. Captain Joe, on the first word 
of complaint, handed the man his money and 
put him ashore. The severity of the work was 
never resented. It was only against their com- 
mon enemies, the winds and the seas, that 
murmurs were heard. “ Drat that wind ! ” 
one would say. “ Here she ’s a-haulin’ to the 
east’rd agin, an’ we ain’t got them j’ints [in 
the masonry] p’inted.” Or, ‘Ht makes a man 
sick to see th’ way this month ’s been a-goin’ 
on, — not a decent day since las’ Tuesday.” 

Sanford liked these men. He was always 
at home with them. He loved their courage, 
their grit, their loyalty to one another and to 
the work itself. The absence of ceremony 
among them never offended him. His cheery 
“ Good-morning ” as he stepped aboard was as 
cheerily answered, but no other demonstration 
took place. 

Captain Joe stopped work only long enough 
to shake Sanford’s hand and to present him 
to the newcomer, Captain Bob Brandt of the 
Screamer. 

‘‘ Cap’ll Bob ! ” he called, waving his hand. 

“ Ay, ay, sir ! ” came the ready response of 
his early training. 

‘‘Come aft, sir. Mr. Sanford wants ye.’ 
The “ sir ” was merely a recognition of the 
captain’s rank. 


CAPTAIN BRANDT AT THE THROTTLE 29 

A tall, straight, blue-eyed young fellow of 
twenty-two, with a face like an open book, 
walked down the deck, — one of those perfectly 
simple, absolutely fearless, alert men found so 
often on the New England coast, with legs 
and arms of steel, body of hickory, and hands 
of whalebone : cabin-boy at twelve, common 
sailor at sixteen, first mate at twenty, and full 
captain the year he voted. 

Sanford looked him all over, from his shoes 
to his cap. He knew a round full man when 
he saw him. This one seemed to be without 
a flaw. Sanford saw too that he possessed that 
yeast of good nature without which the best of 
men are heavy and dull. 

“ Can you lift these blocks. Captain Brandt ^ ” 
he asked in a hearty tone, more like that of a 
comrade than an employer, his hand extended 
in greeting. 

“ Well, I can try, sir,” came the modest 
reply, the young man’s face lighting up as he 
looked into Sanford’s eyes, where he read with 
equal quickness a ready appreciation, so encour- 
aging to every man who intends to do his best. 

Captain Brandt and every member of the 
gang knew that it was not the mere weight of 
these enrockment blocks which made the hand- 
ling of them so serious a matter ; twelve tons 
is a light lift for many boat-derricks. It was 
the fact that they must be loaded aboard a ves- 
sel not only small enough to be easily handled 


30 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

in any reasonable weather, but with a water- 
draught shoal enough to permit her lying safely 
in a running tide alongside the Ledge while 
the individual blocks were being lowered over 
her side. 

The hangers-on about the dock questioned 
whether any sloop could do this work. All 
winter, in fact, they had discussed it about the 
tavern stoves. 

** Billy,” said old Marrows, an assumed au- 
thority on stone-sloops, but not in Sanford’s 
employ, although a constant applicant, “ I ain’t 
sayin’ nothin’ agin her beam, mind, but she ’s 
too peaked fprrud. ’Nother thing, when she ’s 
got them stones slung, them chain-plates won’t 
hold ’er shrouds. I would n’t be s’prised to 
see that mast jerked clean out’er her.” 

Bill Lacey, the handsome young rigger to 
whom the remark was addressed, leaned over 
the sloop’s rail, scanned every bolt in her 
plates, glanced up at the standing rigging, 
tried it with his hand as if it were a tight-rope, 
and with a satisfied air answered, “Them 
plates is all right. Marrows, — it’s her b’iler 
that ’s a-worryin’ me. What do you say, Ca- 
leb ? ” turning to Caleb West, a broad-shoul- 
dered, grizzled man in a sou’wester, who was 
mending a leak in a diving-dress, the odor of 
the burning cement in a pan beside him min- 
gling with the savory smell of frying pork 
coming up from the galley. 


CAPTAIN BRANDT AT THE THROTTLE 31 

Wall, I ain’t said, Billy,” replied Caleb in 
a cheery voice, stroking his bushy gray beard. 
“Them as don’t know better keep shet.” 

There was a loud laugh at the young rigger’s 
expense, in which everybody except Lacey and 
Caleb joined. Lacey’s face hardened under 
the thrust, while Caleb still smiled, a quaint 
expression overspreading his features, — one 
that often came when something pleased him, 
and which by its sweetness showed how little 
venom lay behind his reproofs. 

“These ’ere sloops is jes’ like women,” said 
George Nickles, the cook, a big, oily man, with 
his sleeves rolled up above his elbows, a greasy 
apron about his waist. He was dipping a 
bucket overboard. “Ye can’t tell nothin’ 
about ’em till ye tries ’em.” 

The application of the simile not being im- 
mediately apparent, — few of Nickles’ similes 
ever were, — nobody answered. Lacey stole a 
look at Nickles and then at Caleb, to see if the 
shot had been meant for him, and meeting the 
diver’s unconscious clear blue eyes, looked sea- 
ward again. 

Lonny Bowles, a big derrickman from Noank 
quarries, in a red shirt, discolored on the back 
with a pink Y where his suspenders had 
crossed, now moved nearer and joined in the 
discussion. 

“ She kin h’ist any two on ’em, an’ never 
wet ’er deck combin’s. I seen these Cape Ann 


32 


CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

sloops afore, when we wuz buildin’ Stonin’ton 
breakwater. Ye would n’t believe they had it 
in ’em till ye see ’em work. Her b’iler ’s all 
right.” 

“Don’t you like the sloop, Caleb said 
Sanford, who had been listening. “ Don’t you 
think she ’ll do her work } ” he continued, mov- 
ing a rebellious leg of the rubber dress to sit 
the closer. 

“ Well, of course, sir, I ain’t knowed ’er long 
’nough to swear by yit. She ’s fittin’ for loadin’ 
’em on land, maybe, but she may have some 
trouble gittin’ rid of ’em at the Ledge. Her 
b’iler looks kind o’ weak to me,” and the mas- 
ter diver bent over the pan, stirring the boiling 
cement with his sheath-knife, the rubber suit 
' sprawled out over his knees, the awkward, 
stiff, empty legs and arms of the dress flopping 
about as he patched its many leaks. Then he 
added with a quaint smile, “ But if Cap’n Joe 
says she ’s all right, ye can pin to her.” 

Sanford moved a little closer to Caleb, hold- 
ing the pan of cement for him, and watching 
him at work. He had known him for years as 
a fearless diver of marvelous pluck and endur- 
ance ; one capable of working seven consecu- 
tive hours under water. When an English bark 
had run on top of Big Spindle Reef and backed 
off into one hundred and ten feet of water, the 
captain and six of the crew were saved, but 
the captain’s wife, helpless in the cabin, had 


CAPTAIN BRANDT AT THE THROTTLE 33 

been drowned. Caleb had gone below, cleared 
away the broken deck that pinned her down, 
and had brought her body up in his arms. His 
helmet was spattered inside with the blood 
that trickled from his ears, owing to the enor- 
mous pressure of the sea. This had been not 
a twelvemonth since. 

The constant facing of dangers had made of 
the diver a quiet, reticent man. There was, too, 
a gentleness and restful patience about him 
that always appealed to Sanford, and next to 
Captain Joe he was the one man on the work- 
ing force whom he trusted most. Of late his 
pale blue eyes had shone with a softer light, 
as if he were perpetually hugging some happi- 
ness to himself. Those who knew him best 
said that all this happy gentleness had come 
with the girl wife: Since he had entered San- 
ford’s employment he had married a second 
and a younger wife, — a mere child, the men 
said, young enough to be his daughter, too 
young for a man of forty-five. 

And yet Caleb was not an old man, if the 
possession of vigor and energy meant anything. 
His cheeks had the rosy hue of perfect health, 
and his step was lighter and more agile than 
that of many men half his years. Only his 
beard was gray. Yet he was called by his 
shipmates old, for in the hard working world 
in which he lived none but the earlier years 
of a man’s life counted as youth. 


34 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

His cabin, a small, two-story affair, bought 
with the money he had saved during his fifteen 
years on the Lightship and after his first wife’s 
death, lay a short distance up the shore above 
that of Captain Joe, and in plain sight of the 
Screamer. 

When Caleb rose to" wash his hands, he 
caught sight of a blue apron tossing on its dis- 
tant porch. Bill Lacey saw the apron too, and 
had answered it a moment later with a little 
wave of his own. Caleb did not notice Billy’s 
signal, but Captain Joe did, and a peculiar look 
filled his eye that the men did not often see. 
In his confusion Lacey flushed scarlet, and 
upset the pan of cement. 

When Nickles announced breakfast. Captain 
Joe soused a bucket overboard, rested it on the 
rail and plunged in his hands, the splashing 
drops glistening in the sunlight, and called 
out : — 

“Come, Mr. Sanford, — breakfast’s ready, 
men.” Then, waving his hand to Caleb and the 
others who had been discussing the Screamer, 
he said, laughing, “ All you men what 's gittin’ 
skeery ’bout this sloop kin step ashore. I ’m 
a-goin’ to load three o’ them stone aboard here 
after breakfast, if I roll her over bottom side 
up.” 

Sanford sat at the head of the table, his 
back to the companionway, the crew’s bunks 
within reach of his 'hand. He was the only 


CAPTAIN BRANDT AT THE THROTTLE 35 

man ^vho wore a coat. Set out before him 
were fried eggs sizzling in squares of pork ; 
hashed potatoes, browned in what was left of 
the sizzle ; saleratus biscuit, full of dark spots ; 
and colfee in tin cups. There was also a small 
jug of molasses, protected by a pewter top, and 
there was, too, a bottle of tomato catsup, whose 
contents were indiscriminately spattered over 
every plate. 

Long years of association had familiarized 
Sanford with certain rules of etiquette to be 
observed at a meal like this. Whoever fin- 
ished first, he knew, must push back his stool 
out of the way and instantly mount to the 
deck. In confined quarters, elbow-room is a 
luxury, and its free gift a courtesy. He also 
knew that to leave anything on his plate would 
have been regarded as an evidence of extreme 
bad manners, suggesting moreover a reflection 
upon the skill of the cook. It was also a part 
of the code to wipe one’s knife carefully on 
the last piece of bread, which was to be swal- 
lowed immediately, thus obliterating all traces 
of the repast, except, of course, the bones, 
which must be picked clean and piled on one 
side of the plate. Captain Joe himself never 
neglected any of these little amenities. 

Sanford forgot none of them. He wiped his 
knife and cleared his plate as carefully as any 
of his men. He drank from his tin cup, and 
ate his eggs and fried pork too with the same 


36 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

zest that he would have felt before one of 
Sam’s choicest breakfasts. He really enjoyed 
these repasts. To him there was something 
wonderfully inspiring in watching a group of 
big, strong, broad-breasted, horny-handed labor- 
ing men intent on satisfying a hunger born of 
fresh air and hard work. There was an eager- 
ness about their movements, a relish as each 
mouthful disappeared, attended by a good 
humor and sound digestion that would have 
given a sallow-faced dyspeptic a new view of 
life, and gone far toward converting a dilettante 
to the belief that although forks and napkins 
were perhaps indispensable luxuries, existence 
might not be wholly desolate with plain fingers 
and shirt -cuffs. 

Breakfast over. Captain Joe was the first 
man on deck. He had left his pea-jacket in 
the cabin, and now wore his every-day outfit — 
the blue flannel shirt, long since stretched out 
of shape in its efforts to accommodate itself 
to the spread of his shoulders, and a pair of 
trousers in which each corrugated wrinkle out- 
lined a knotted muscle twisted up and down a 
pair of legs sturdy as rudder-posts. 

Come, men ! ” he called in a command- 
ing voice, with none of the gentler tones heard 
at the breakfast-table. “ Pull yourselves to- 
gether. . . . Bill Lacey, lower away that hook 
and git them chains ready. ... Fire up, Cap’n 
Brandt, and give ’er every pound o’ steam she ’ll 


CAPTAIN BRANDT AT THE THROTTLE 37 

carry. . . . Here, — one or two of ye, run this 
’ere line ashore and make her bow fast. . . . 
Drop that divin’-suit, Caleb ; this ain’t no time 
to patch things.” 

These orders were volleyed at the men as he 
stepped from the sloop to the wharf, each man 
springing to his place with an alacrity seldom 
seen among men of other crews. Close asso- 
ciation with Captain Joe always inspired a pe- 
culiar confidence and loyalty not only among 
his own men, but in all the others who heard 
his voice. His personal magnetism, his enthu- 
siasm, his seeming reckless fearlessness, and 
yet extreme caution and watchful care for the 
safety of his men, had created among his em- 
ployees a blind confidence in his judgment that 
always resulted in immediate and unquestioned 
obedience to his orders, no matter what the 
risk might seem. 

The sloop was now lying alongside the 
wharf, with beam and stern lines made fast to 
the outlying water-spiles to steady her. When 
the tackle was shaken clear, the boom was 
lowered at the proper angle ; the heavy chain 
terminating in an enormous S-hook, which 
hung directly over the centre of one of the big 
enrockment blocks. 

Captain Joe moved down the dock and ad- 
justed with his own hands the steel “Lewis” 
that was to be driven into the big trial stone. 
Important details he never left to others. If 


38 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

this Lewis should slip, with the stone suspended 
over the sloop’s deck, the huge block would 
crush through her timbers, sinking her in- 
stantly. 

The Screamer’s captain was at the throttle, 
watching the steadily rising steam-gauge. 

‘‘ Give ’er a turn and take up the slack ! ” 
shouted Captain Joe. 

Ay, ay, sir ! ” answered the skipper quickly, 
as the cogs of the hoisting-engine began to 
move, winding all the loose slackened “fall” 
around the drum, until it straightened out like 
a telegraph wire. 

“ What ’s she carryin’ now, Cap’n Bob ? ” 
again shouted Captain Joe. 

“ Seventy-six pounds, sir.” 

“ Give ’er time — don’t push ’er.” 

A crowd began to gather on the dock : fish- 
ermen and workmen on their way to the village, 
idlers along the shore road, and others. They 
all understood that the trial of the sloop was to 
be made this morning, and great interest was 
felt. The huge stones had rested all winter on 
this wharf, and had been discussed and redis- 
cussed until each one outweighed the Pyra- 
mids. Loading such pieces on board a vessel 
like the Screamer had never been done in Key- 
port before. 

Old Marrows whispered certain misgivings, 
as he made fast a line far up on the wharf. 
Some of the listeners moved back across the 


CAPTAIN BRANDT AT THE THROTTLE 39 

road, yielding to the vague fear of the inexpe- 
rienced. Bets were offered that ‘‘her mast 
would be tore clean out of her ; ” or that 
“ she ’d put her starboard rail under water afore 
she ’d start ’em ; ” and that “ she ’d sink where 
she lay.” 

The needle of the gauge on the sloop’s 
boiler revolved slowly until it registered ninety 
pounds. Little puffs of blue vaporless steam 
hissed from the safety-valve. The boiler was 
getting ready to do its duty. 

Captain Joe looked aloft, ordered the boom 
topped a few inches, so that the lift would be 
plumb, sprang upon the sloop’s deck, scruti- 
nized the steam-gauge, saw that the rope was 
evenly wound on the drum, emptied an oil-can 
into the sunken wooden saddle in which the 
butt of the boom rested, followed with his eye 
every foot of the manilla fall from the drum 
through the double blocks to the chain hang- 
ing over the big stone, called to the people on 
the dock to get out of harm’s way, saw that 
every man was in his place, and shouted the 
order, clear and sharp, — 

“ Go ahead ! ” 

The cogs of the drum of the hoisting-engine 
spun around until the great weight began to 
tell ; then the strokes of the steam-pistons 
slowed down. The outboard mooring-lines were 
now tight as standing rigging. The butt of 
the boom in the sunken saddle was creaking 


40 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

as it turned, a pungent odor from the friction- 
heated oil filling the air. The strain increased, 
and the sloop careened toward the wharf until 
her bilge struck the water, drawing taut as 
bars of steel her outboard shrouds. Ominous 
clicks came from the new manilla as its twists 
were straightened out. 

Captain Bob Brandt still stood by the throt- 
tle, one of his crew firing, — sometimes with 
refuse cotton waste soaked in kerosene. He 
was watching every part of his sloop then un- 
der strain to see how she stood the test. 

The slow movement of the pistons continued. 

The strain on the outboard shroud became 
intense. A dead silence prevailed, broken 
only by the clicking fall and the creak of the 
roller blocks. 

Twice the safety-valve blew a hoarse note 
of warning. 

Slowly, inch by inch, the sloop settled in 
the water, stopped suddenly, and quivered her 
entire length. Another turn of the drum on 
her deck and the huge stone canted a point, 
slid the width of a dock plank, and with a 
hoarse, scraping sound turned half round and 
swung clear of the wharf ! 

A cheer went up from the motley crowd on 
the dock. 

Not a word escaped the men at work. The 
worst was yet to come. 

The swinging stone must yet be lowered on 
deck. 


CAPTAIN BRANDT AT THE THROTTLE 41 

“ Tighten up that guy,” said Captain Joe 
quietly, between his teeth„ never taking his 
eyes from the stone ; his hand meanwhile on 
the fall, to test its strain. 

Bill Lacey and Caleb ran to the end of the 
dock, whipped one end of a line around a 
mooring-post, and with their knees bent to the 
ground held on with all their strength. The 
other end of the guy was fastened to the steel 
S-hook that held the Lewis now securely in 
the stone. 

“Easy — ea-s-y ! ” said Captain Joe, a mo- 
mentary shadow of anxiety on his face. The 
guy held by Caleb and Lacey gradually slack- 
ened. The great stone, now free to swing 
clear, moved slowly in mid-air oVer the edge of 
the wharf, passed above the water, cleared the 
rail of the sloop, and settled on her deck as 
gently as a grounding balloon. 

The cheer that broke from all hands brought 
the fishwives to their porches. 


CHAPTER IV 


AMONG THE BLACKFISH AND TOMCODS 

Hardly had the men ceased cheering when 
the boom was swung back, another huge stone 
was lifted from the wharf, and loaded aboard 
the sloop. A third followed, was lowered upon 
rollers on the deck and warped amidships, to 
trim the boat. The mooring-lines were cast 
off, and the sloop’s sail partly hoisted for better 
steering, and* a nervous, sputtering little tug 
tightened a tow-line over the Screamer’s bow. 

The flotilla now moved slowly out of the 
harbor toward the Ledge. Captain Brandt 
stood at the wheel. His face was radiant. His 
boat had met the test, just as he knew she 
would. She had stood by him too many times 
before for him to doubt her now. 

There had been one night at Rockport when 
she lay till morning, bow on to a gale, within a 
cable’s length of the breakwater. This saw- 
toothed ledge, with the new floating buoys of 
Captain Joe’s, could not frighten him after 
that. 

Yet not a word of boasting passed his lips. 
He spun his wheel and held his peace. 


AMONG THE BLACKFISH 


43 

When the open harbor was reached, the 
men overhauled the boom-tackle, getting ready 
for the real work of the day. Bill Lacey and 
Caleb West lifted the air-pump from its case, 
and oiled the plunger. Caleb was to dive that 
day himself,. — work like this required an expe- 
rienced hand, — and find a bed for these first 
three stones as they were lowered under water. 
Lacey was to tend the life-line. 

As the tug and sloop passed into the broad 
water, Medford Village could be seen toward 
the southeast. Sanford adjusted his marine- 
glass, and focused its lens on Mrs. Leroy’s 
country-house. It lay near the water, and was 
surmounted by a cupola he had often occupied 
as a lookout when he had been Mrs. Leroy’s 
guest, and the weather had been too rough for 
him to land at the Ledge. He saw that the 
bricklayers were really at work, and that the 
dining-room extension was already well under 
way, the scaffolding being above the roof. He 
meant, if the weather permitted, to stop there 
on his way home. 

Soon the Ledge itself loomed up. The con- 
crete men were evidently busy, for the white 
steam from the mixers rose straight into the 
still air. 

An hour more and the windows on the lee 
side of the shanty could be distinguished, and 
a little later, the men on the platform as they 
gathered to await the approaching flotilla. 


44 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

When they caught sight of the big blocks 
stored on the Screamer’s deck, they broke into 
a cheer that was followed by a shrill saluting 
whistle from the big hoisting-engine on the 
Ledge, answered as cheerily by the approach- 
ing tug. Work on the Ledge could now begin 
in earnest. 

If Crotch Island was like the back of a 
motionless whale. Shark’s Ledge was like that 
of a turtle, — a turtle say one hundred and 
fifty feet long by a hundred wide, lying in 
a moving sea, and always fringed by a ruffling 
of surf curls, or swept by great waves that 
rolled in from Montauk. No landing could 
ever be made here except in the eddy formed 
by the turtle itself, and then only in the still- 
est weather. 

The shell of this rock-incrusted turtle had 
been formed by dumping on the original 
Ledge, and completely covering it, thousands 
of tons of rough stone, each piece as big as a 
cart-body. Upon this stony shell, which rose 
above high-water mark, a wooden platform had 
been erected for the proper storage of gravel, 
sand, barrels of cement, hoisting-engines, con- 
crete mixers, tools, and a shanty for the men. 
It was down by the turtle’s side — down below 
the slop of the surf — that the big enrockment 
blocks were to be placed, one on the other, 
their sides touching close as those on a street 
pavement. The lowest stone of all was to be 


AMONG THE BLACKFISH 


45 


laid on the bottom of the sea in thirty feet of 
water ; the top one was to be placed where its 
upper edges would be thrust above its splash. 
In this way the loose rough stones of the tur- 
tle’s shell would have an even covering and 
the finished structure be protected from the 
crush of floating ice and the fury of winter 
gales. 

By a change of plan the year before, a deep 
hole nearly sixty feet in diameter had been 
made in the back of this turtle by lifting out 
these rough stones. This hole was now being 
filled with concrete up to low-water level and 
retained in form by circular iron bands. On 
top of this enormous artificial bedstone was 
to be placed the tower of the lighthouse itself, 
constructed of dressed stone, many of the sin- 
gle pieces to be larger than those now on the 
Screamer’s deck. The four great derrick- 
masts with “ twenty-inch butts ” which had 
been ordered by telegraph the day before in 
Sanford’s office were to be used to place these 
dressed stones in position. 

The situation was more than usually ex- 
posed. The nearest land to the Ledge was 
Crotch Island, two miles away, while to the 
east stretched the wide sea, hungty for fresh 
victims, and losing no chance to worst the 
men on the Ledge. For two years it had 
fought the captain and his men without avail. 
The Old Man of the Sea hates the warning 


46 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

voice of the fog-horn and the cheery light in 
the tall tower — they rob him of his prey. 

The tug continued on her course for half a 
mile, steered closer, the sloop following, and 
gained the eddy of the Ledge out of the racing 
tide. Four men from the platform now sprang 
into a whaleboat and pulled out to meet the 
sloop, carrying one end of a heavy hawser 
which was being paid out by the men on the 
Ledge. The hawser was made fast to the 
sloop’s cleats and hauled tight. The tug was 
cast loose and sent back to Keyport. Out- 
board hawsers were run by the crew of the 
whaleboat to the floating anchor-buoys, to keep 
the sloop off the stone-pile when the enrock- 
ment blocks were being swung clear of her 
sides. 

Caleb and Lacey began at once to overhaul 
the diving-gear. The air-pump was set close 
to the sloop’s rail ; and a short ladder was 
lashed to her side, to enable the diver to reach 
the water easily. The air-hose and life-lines 
were then uncoiled. 

Caleb threw off his coat and trousers, that 
he might move the more freely in his diving- 
dress, and with Lonny Bowles’s assistance 
twisted himself into his rubber suit, — body, 
arms, and legs being made of one piece of air- 
tight and water-tight rubber cloth. 

By the time the sloop had been securely 
moored, and the boom-tackle made ready to 


AMONG THE BLACKFISH 


47 


lift the stone, Caleb stood on the ladder com- 
pletely equipped, except for his copper helmet, 
tne last thing done to a diver before he sinks 
under water. Captain Joe always adjusted Ca- 
leb’s himself. On Caleb’s breast and between 
his shoulders hung two lead plates weighing 
twenty-five pounds each, and on his feet were 
two iron-shod shoes of equal weight. These 
were needed as ballast, to overbalance the 
buoyancy of his inflated dress, and enable him 
to sink or rise at his pleasure. Firmly tied to 
his wrist was a stout cord, — his life-line, — 
and attached to the back of the copper helmet 
was a long rubber hose, through which a con- 
stant stream of fresh air was to be pumped 
inside his helmet and suit. 

In addition to these necessary appointments 
there was hung over one shoulder a canvas 
haversack, containing a small cord, a chisel, 
a water-compass, and a sheath-knife. The 
sheath-knife is the last desperate resource of 
the diver when his air-hose becomes tangled or 
clogged, his signals are misunderstood, and he 
must either cut his hose in the effort to free, 
himself and reach the surface, or suffocate 
where he is. 

Captain Joe adjusted the copper helmet, and 
stood with Caleb’s glass face-plate in his hand, 
thus leaving his helmet open for a final order 
in his ear, before he lowered him overboard. 
The cogs of the Screamer’s drum began turn- 


48 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

ing, followed by the same creaking and snap- 
ping of manilla and straining of boom that 
had been heard when she was loaded. 

Meanwhile between the sea and the sloop a 
fight had already begun. The current which 
swept by within ten feet of her bilge curled 
and eddied about the buoy-floats, tugging at 
their chains, while wave after wave tried to 
reach her bow, only to fall back beaten and 
snapping like hungry wolves. 

The Cape Ann sloop had fought these fights 
before : all along her timber rail were the scars 
of similar battles. She had only to keep her 
bow-cheeks from the teeth of these murderous 
rocks, and she could laugh all day at their open 
jaws. 

With the starting of the hoisting-engine the 
steam began to hiss through the safety-valve, 
and the bow-lines of the sloop straightened 
like strands of steel. Then there came a 
slight, staggering movement as she adjusted 
herself to the shifting weight. Without a 
sound, the stone rose from the deck, cleared 
the rail, and hung over the sea. Another 
cheer went up — this time from both the men 
on board the sloop and those on the Ledge. 
Captain Brandt smiled with closed lips. Life 
was easy for him now. 

“ Lower away,” said Captain Joe in the 
same tone he would have used in asking for 
the butter, as he turned to screw on Caleb’s 


AMONG THE BLACKFISH 


49 


face-plate, shutting out the fresh air, and giv- 
ing the diver only pumped air to breathe. 

The stone sank slowly into the sea, the dust 
and dirt of its long outdoor storage discolor- 
ing the clear water. 

“ Hold her,” continued Captain Joe, his hand 
still on Caleb’s face-plate, as he stood erect on 
the ladder. ‘‘ Stand by, Billy. Go on with 
that pump, men, — give him plenty of air.’" 

Two men began turning the handles of the 
pump. Caleb’s dress filled out like a balloon ; 
Lacey took his place near the small ladder, the 
other end of Caleb’s life-line having been made 
fast to his wrist, and the diver sank slowly out 
of sight, his hammer in his hand, the air bub- 
bles from his exhaust-valve marking his down- 
ward course. 

As Caleb sank, he hugged his arms close to 
his body, pressed his knees together, forcing 
the surplus air from his dress, and dropped 
rapidly toward the bottom. The thick lead 
soles of his shoes kept his feet down and his 
head up, and the breast-plates steadied him. 

At the depth of twenty feet he touched the 
tops of the sea-kelp growing on the rocks 
below, — he could feel the long tongues of 
leaves scraping his legs. Then, as he sank 
deeper, his shoes struck an outlying boulder. 
Caleb pushed himself off, floated around it, 
measured it with his arms, and settled to the 
gravel. He was now between the outlying 


50 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

boulder and the Ledge. Here he raised him- 
self erect on his feet and looked about : the 
gravel beneath him was white and spangled 
with starfish ; little crabs lay motionless, or 
scuttled away at his crunching tread ; the sides 
of the isolated boulder were smooth and clean, 
the top being covered with waving kelp. In 
the dim, greenish light this boulder looked like 
a weird head, — a kind of submarine Medusa, 
with her hair streaming upward. The jagged 
rock-pile next it, its top also covered with kelp, 
resembled a hill of purple and brown corn 
swaying in the ceaseless current. 

Caleb thrust his hand into his haversack, 
grasped his long knife, slashed at the kelp of 
the rock-pile to see the bottom stones the 
clearer, and sent a quick signal of “ All right 
— lower away ! ” through the life-line, to Lacey, 
who stood on the sloop’s deck above him. 

Almost instantly a huge square green sha- 
dow edged with a brilliant iridescent light sank 
down towards him, growing larger and larger 
in its descent. Caleb peered upward through 
his face-plate, followed the course of the stone, 
and jerked a second signal to Lacey’s wrist. 
This signal was repeated in words by Lacey to 
Captain Brandt, who held the throttle, and the 
shadowy stone was stopped within three feet of 
the gravel bottom. Here it swayed slowly, 
half turned, and touched On the boulder. 

Caleb watched the stone carefully until it 


AMONG THE BLACKFISH 


51 


was perfectly still, crept along, swimming with 
one hand, and measured carefully with his eye 
the distance between the boulder and the 
Ledge. Then he sent a quick signal of “ Lower 
— all gone,” up to Lacey’s wrist. The great 
stone dropped a chain’s. link ; slid halfway the 
boulder, scraping the kelp in its course ; ca- 
reened, and hung over the gravel with one end 
tilted on a point of the rocky ledge. As it 
hung suspended, its lower end buried itself in 
the gravel near the boulder, while the upper 
lay aslant up the slope of the rock-covered 
ledge. 

Caleb again sw^m carefully around the stone, 
opened his arms, and inflating his dress rose 
five or six feet through the green water, floated 
over the huge stone, and grasping with his 
bare hand the lowering chain by which the 
stone hung, tested its strain. The chain was 
as rigid as a bar of steel. This showed that 
the stone was not fully grounded, and there- 
fore dangerous, being likely to slide off at any 
moment. The diver now sent a telegram of 
short and long jerks aloft, asking for a crow- 
bar ; hooked his legs around the lowering chain 
and pressed his copper helmet to the chain 
links to listen to Captain Joe’s answer. A 
series of dull thuds, long and short, struck by 
a hammer above — a means of communication 
often possible when the depth of water is not 
great — told him that the crowbar he had asked 


52 


CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER* 

for would be sent down at once. While he 
waited motionless, a blackfish pressed his nose 
to the glass of his face-plate, and scurried off 
to tell his fellows living in the kelp how strange 
a thing he had seen that day. 

A quick jerk from Lacey, and the point of 
the crowbar dangled over Caleb’s head. In an 
instant, to prevent his losing it in the kelp, he 
had lashed another and smaller cord about its 
middle, and with the bar firmly in his hand laid 
himself flat on the stone. The diver now ex- 
amined carefully the points of contact between 
the boulder and the hanging stone, inserted 
one end of the bar under its edge, sent a warn- 
ing signal above, braced both feet against the 
lowering chain, threw his whole strength on 
the bar, and gave a quick, sharp pull. The 
next instant the chain tightened ; the bar, 
released from the strain, bounded from his 
hand ; there was a headlong surge of the huge 
shadowy mass through the waving kelp, and 
the great block slipped into its place, stirring 
up the bottom silt in a great cloud of water- 
dust. 

The first stone of the system of enrockment 
had been bedded ! 

Caleb clung with both hands to the lowering 
chain, waited until the water cleared, knocked 
out the Lewis pin that held the S-hook, thus 
freeing the chain, and signaled “All clear — 
hoist.” Then he hauled the crowbar towards 


AMONG THE BLACKFISH 53 

him by the cord, signaled for the next stone, 
moved away from the reach of falling bodies, 
and sank into a bed of sea-kelp as comfortably 
as if it had been a sofa-cushion. 

These breathing spells rest the lungs of a 
diver and lighten his work. Being at rest he 
can manage his dress the better, inflating it so 
that he is able to get his air with greater ease 
and regularity. The relief is sometimes so 
soothing that in long waits the droning of the 
air-valve will lull the diver into a sleep, from 
which he is suddenly awakened by a quick jerk 
on his wrist. Many divers, while waiting for 
the movements of those above, play with the 
fish, watch the crabs, or rake over the gravel 
in search of the thousand and one things that 
are lost overboard and that everybody hopes 
to find on the bottom of the sea. 

Caleb did none of these things. He was too 
expert a diver to allow himself to go to sleep, 
and he had too much to think about to play 
with the fish. He sat quietly awaiting his call, 
his thoughts on the day of the week and how 
long it would be before Saturday night came 
again, and whether, when he left that morning, 
he had arranged everything for the little wife, 
so that she would be comfortable until his re- 
turn. Once a lobster moved slowly up and 
nipped his red fingers with its claw, thinking 
them some tidbit previously unknown. (The 
dress terminates at the wrist with a waterproof 


54 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

and air-tight band, leaving the hands bare.) At 
another time two tomcods came sailing past, 
side by side, flapped their tails on his helmet, 
and scampered off. But Caleb, sitting comfort- 
ably on his sofa-cushion of seaweed thirty feet 
under water, paid little heed to outside things. 
His eyes only saw a tossing apron and a trim 
little figure on a cabin porch, as she waved 
him a last good-by. 

In the world above, a world of fleecy clouds 
and shimmering sea, some changes had taken 
place since Caleb sank out of the sunlight. 
Hardly had the second stone been made ready 
to be swung overboard, when there came a sud- 
den uplifting of the sea. One of those tramp 
waves preceding a heavy storm had strayed in 
from Montauk and was making straight for the 
Ledge. 

Captain Joe sprang on the sloop’s rail and 
looked seaward, and a shade of disappointment 
crossed his face. 

“Stand by on that outboard ha’sser ! ” he 
shouted in a voice that was heard all over the 
Ledge. 

The heavy outboard hawser holding the 
sloop whipped out of the sea with the sudden 
strain, thrashed the spray from its twists, and 
quivered like a fiddle-string. The sloop stag- 
gered for an instant, plunged bow under, 
careened to her rail, and righted herself within 


AMONG THE BLACKFISH 


55 


oar’s touch of the Ledge. Three feet from 
her bilge streak crouched a grinning rock with 
its teeth set ! 

Captain Joe smiled and looked at Captain 
Brandt. 

‘‘ Ain’t nothin’ when ye git used to ’t, Cap’n 
Bob. I ain’t a-goin’ ter scratch ’er paint. Got 
to bank yer fires. Them other two stone’ll 
have to wait till the tide turns.” 

“ Ay, ay, sir,” replied the skipper, throwing 
the furnace door wide open. The danger was 
passed for the second time, and in the final 
test his boat had proved herself. Yet again 
he did not boast. There was only a fearless 
ready-to-meet-anything air about him as, with 
shoulders squared and head up, he walked 
down the deck and said to Captain Joe, in a 
tone as if he were only asking for information, 
but without the slightest shade of anxiety. 

If that ’ere ha’sser ’d parted, Cap’n Joe, when 
she give that plunge, it would ’a’ been all up 
with us, — eh ^ ” 

‘‘Yes, — ’spec’ so,” answered the captain, 
his mind, now that the danger had passed, 
neither on the question nor on the answer. 
Then suddenly awakening with a look of in- 
tense interest, “That line was a new one, 
Cap’n Bob. I picked it out a-purpose ; them 
kind don’t part.” 

Sanford, who had been standing by the til- 
ler, anxiously watching the conflict with the 


56 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

sea, walked forward and grasped the skipper^s 
hand. 

“I want to congratulate you,” he said, ^‘on 
your sloop and on your pluck. It is not every 
man can lie around this stone-pile for the first 
time and keep his head.” 

Captain Brandt flushed like a bashful girl, 
and turned away his face. “Well, sir — ye 
see” — He never finished the sentence. The 
compliment had upset him more than the 
escape of the sloop. 

All was bustle now on board the Screamer. 
The boom was swung in aboard, lowered, and 
laid on the deck. Caleb had been hauled up 
to the surface, his helmet unscrewed, and his 
shoes and breast-plate taken off. He still wore 
his dress, so that he could be ready for the 
other two stones when the tide turned. Mean- 
while he walked about the deck looking like a 
great bear on his hind legs, his bushy beard 
puffed out over his copper collar. 

During the interval of the change of tide 
dinner was announced, and the Screamer’s 
crew went below to more sizzle and dough- 
balls, and this time a piece of corned beef, 
while Sanford, Captain Joe, Caleb, and Lacey 
sprang into the sloop’s yawl and sculled for 
the shanty and their dinner, keeping close to 
the hawser still holding the sloop. 

The unexpected made half the battle at the 


AMONG THE BLACKFISH 


57 


Ledge. It was not unusual to see a southeast 
roll, three days old, cut down in an hour to the 
smoothness of a mill-pond by a northwest gale, 
and before night to find this same dead calm 
followed by a semi-cyclone. Only an expert 
could checkmate the consequences of weather 
manoeuvres like these. Before Captain Joe, 
sitting at the head of the table, had filled each 
man’s plate with his fair proportion of cabbage 
and pork, a whiff of wind puffed in the bit of 
calico that served as a curtain for the shanty’s 
pantry window, — the one facing east. Cap- 
tain Joe sprang from his seat, and, bareheaded 
as he was, mounted the concrete platforms and 
looked seaward. Off towards Block Island he 
saw a little wrinkling line of silver flashing out 
of the deepening haze, while toward Crotch 
Island scattered flurries of wind furred the 
glittering surface of the sea with dull splotches, 
— as when one breathes upon a mirror. The 
captain turned quickly, entered the shanty, and 
examined the barometer. It had fallen two 
points. 

Finish yer dinner, men,” he said quietly. 
“ That ’s the las’ stone to-day, Mr. Sanford. 
It ’s beginnin’ ter git lumpy. It ’ll blow a 
livin’ gale o’ wind by sundown.” 

A second and stronger puff now swayed the 
men’s oilskins, hanging against the east door. 
This time the air was colder and more moist. 
The sky overhead had thickened. In the 


$8 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

southeast lay two sun-dog clouds, their backs 
shimmering like opals, while about the feverish 
eye of the sun itself gathered a reddish circle 
like an inflammation. 

Sanford was on the platform, reading the 
signs of the coming gale. It was important 
that he should reach Keyport by night, and he 
had no time to spare. As the men came out 
one after another, each of them glanced to- 
ward the horizon, and quickening his move- 
ments fell to work putting the place in order. 
The loose barrow planks were quickly racked 
up on the shanty’s roof, out of the wash of the 
expected surf ; an extra safety-guy was made 
fast to the platform holding the hoisting-en- 
gine, and a great tarpaulin drawn over the 
cement and lashed fast. Meanwhile Captain 
Joe busied himself in examining the turn- 
buckles of the holding-down rods, which bound 
the shanty to the Ledge, and giving them 
another tightening twist, ordering the heavy 
wooden shutters for the east side of the shanty 
to be put up, and seeing that the stove-pipe 
that stuck through the roof was taken down 
and stored inside. 

All this time the Screamer tugged harder 
at her hawser, her bow surging as the ever- 
increasing swell raced past her. 

Orders to man the yawl were now given 
and promptly obeyed. 

Keep everything snug, Caleb, while I ’m 


AMONG THE BLACKFISH 59 

gone ! ” Captain Joe shouted, as he stepped into 
the boat. “It looks soapy, but it may be out 
to the nor’ard an’ clear by daylight. Sit astern, 
Mr. Sanford. Pull away, men, we ain’t got a 
minute.” 

When the Screamer, with two unset stones 
still on her deck, bore away from the Ledge 
with Sanford, Captain Joe, and Lacey on 
board, the spray was flying over the shanty 
roof. 

Caleb stood on the platform waving his 
hand. He was still in his diving-dress. His. 
helmet only had been removed, and his bushy 
beard was flying in the wind. 

“Tell Betty I ’ll be home for Sunday,” the 
men heard him call out, as they flew by under 
close reef. 


CHAPTER V 


AUNTY bell’s KITCHEN 

The storm was still raging, the wind beating 
in fierce gusts against the house and rattling 
the window-panes, when Sanford awoke in the 
low-ceiled room always reserved for him at Cap- 
tain Joe’s. 

“ Turrible dirty, ain’t it ” the captain called, 
as he came in with a hearty good-morning and 
threw open the green blinds. “ I guess she ’ll 
scale off ; it ’s hauled a leetle s’uth’ard since 
daylight. The glass is a-risin’, too. Aunty 
Bell says breakfas’ ’s ready jes’ ’s soon ’s you 
be.” 

All right, captain. Don’t wait. I ’ll come 
in ten minutes,” replied Sanford. 

Outside the little windows a wide-armed tree 
swayed in the storm, its budding branches tap- 
ping the panes. Sanford went to the window 
and looked out. The garden was dripping, and 
the plank walk that ran to the swinging-gate 
was glistening in the driving rain. 

These changes in the weather did not affect 
his plans. Bad days were to be expected, and 
the loss of time at an exposed site like that of 


AUNTY BELL’S KITCHEN 6i 

the Ledge was always considered in the origi- 
nal estimate of the cost 'of the structure. If 
the sea prevented the landing of stone for a 
day or so, the sloop, as he knew, could load a 
full cargo of blocks from the wharf across the 
road, now hidden by the bursting lilacs in the 
captain’s garden ; or the men could begin on 
the iron parts of the new derricks, and if it 
cleared, as Captain Joe predicted, they could 
trim the masts and fit the bands. Sanford 
turned cheerfully from the window, and picked 
up his big sponge that lay by the tin tub Aunty 
Bell always filled for him the night before. 

The furniture and appointments about him 
were of the plainest. There were a bed, a 
wash-stand and a portable tub, three chairs, and 
a small table littered with drawing materials. 
Dimity curtains, snow-white, hung at the win- 
dows, and the bureau was covered with a 
freshly laundered white Marseilles cover. On 
the walls were tacked mechanical drawings, 
showing cross-sections of the several courses 
of masonry, — prospective views of the con- 
crete base and details of the cisterns and cellars 
of the lighthouse. Each of these was labeled 
'' Shark Ledge Lighthouse. Henry Sanford, 
Contractor,” and signed, “ W. A. Carleton, Asst. 
Supt. U. S. L. Estb’t.” In one corner of the 
room rested a field transit, and a pole with its 
red-and-white target. 

The cottage itself was on the main shore 


62 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

road leading from the village to Keyport Light, 
and a little removed from the highway. It had 
two stories and a narrow hall with rooms on 
either side. In the rear were the dining-room 
and kitchen. Overlooking the road in front 
was a wide portico with sloping roof. 

There were two outside doors belonging to 
the house. These were always open. They 
served two purposes, — to let in the air and to 
let in the neighbors. The neighbors included 
everybody who happened to be passing, from 
the doctor to the tramp. This constant stream 
of visitors always met in the kitchen, — a low- 
ceiled, old-fashioned interior, full of nooks and 
angles, that had for years adapted itself to 
everybody’s wants and ministered to every- 
body’s comfort, — and was really the cheeriest 
and cosiest room in the house. 

Its fittings and furnishings were as simple as 
they were convenient. On one side, opposite 
the door, were the windows, looking out upon 
the garden, their sills filled with plants in win- 
ter and sou’wester hats in summer. In the far 
corner stood a pine dresser painted bright green, 
decorated with rows of plates and saucers set 
up on edge, besides various dishes and platters, 
all glistening from the last touch of Aunty 
Bell’s hand polish. Next to the dresser was a 
broad, low settle, also of pine and also bright 
green, except where countless pairs of overalls 
had worn the paint away. Chairs of all kinds 


AUNTY BELL’S KITCHEN 


63 

stood about, — rockers for winter nights, and 
more ceremonious straight-backs for meal-times. 
There was a huge table, too, with always a place 
for one more, and a mantel-rest for pipes and 
knickknacks, — never known to be without a 
box of matches or a nautical almanac. There 
were rows of hooks nailed to the backs of the 
doors, especially adapted to rubber coats and 
oilskins. And tucked away in a corner under 
the stairs was a fresh, sweet-smelling, brass- 
hooped cedar bucket with a cocoanut dipper 
that had helped to cool almost every throat 
from Keyport Village to Keyport Light. 

But it was the stove that made this room 
unique : not an ordinary, commonplace cooking- 
machine, but a big, generous, roomy arrange- 
ment, pushed far back out of everybody’s way, 
with out -riggers for broiling, and capacious 
ovens for baking, and shelves for keeping things 
hot, besides big and little openings on top for 
pots and kettles and frying-pans, of a pattern 
unknown to the modern chef ; each and every 
one dearly prized by the cheery little soul who 
burnt her face to a blazing red in its service. 
This cast-iron embodiment of all the hospitable 
virtues was the special pride of Aunty Bell, the 
captain’s wife, a neat, quick, busy little woman, 
about half the size of the captain in height, 
width, and thickness. Into its recesses she 
poured the warmth of her heart, and from out 
of its capacious receptacles she took the pro- 


64 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

ducts of her bounty. Every kettle sang and 
every griddle “sizzed ” to please her, and every 
fire crackled and laughed at her bidding. 

When Sanford entered there was hardly room 
enough to move. A damp, sweet smell of 
fresh young grass came in at an open window. 
Through the door could be seen the wet grav- 
eled walks, washed clean by the storm, over 
which hopped one or more venturesome robins 
in search of the early worm. 

Carleton, the government superintendent, sat 
near the door, his chair tilted back. In the 
doorway itself stood Miss Mary Peebles, the 
schoolmistress, an angular, thin, mild-eyed wo- 
man, in a rain - varnished waterproof. Even 
while she was taking it off, she was protesting 
that she was too wet to come in, and could not 
stop. Near the stove stooped Bill Lacey, dry- 
ing his. jacket. Around the walls and on the 
window-sills were other waifs, temporarily home- 
less, — two from the paraphernalia dock (regu- 
lar boarders these), and a third, the captain of 
the tug, whose cook was drunk. 

All about the place — now in the pantry, now 
in the kitchen, now with a big dish, now with 
a pile of plates or a pitcher of milk — bustled 
Aunty Bell, with a smile of welcome and a 
cheery word for every one who came. 

Nobody, of course, had come to breakfast, — 
that was seen from the way in which everybody 
insisted he had just dropped in for a moment 


AUNTY BELL’S KITCHEN 65 

out of the wet to see the captain, hearing he 
was home from the Ledge, and from the alac- 
rity with which everybody, one after another, 
as the savory smells of fried fish and soft clams 
filled the room, forgot his good resolutions and 
drew up his chair to the hospitable board. 

Most of them told the truth about wanting 
to see the captain. Since his sojourn among 
them, and without any effort of his own, he 
had filled the position of adviser, protector, and 
banker to half the people along the shore. He 
had fought Miss Peebles’s battle, when the 
school trustees wanted the girl from Norwich 
to have her place. He had recommended the 
tug captain to the towing company, and had 
coached him over-night to insure his getting a 
license in the morning. He had indorsed Caleb 
West’s note to make up the last payment on 
the cabin he had bought to put his young wife 
Betty in ; and when the new furniture had 
come over from Westerly, he had sent two of 
his men to unload it, and had laid some of the 
carpets himself on a Saturday when Betty ex- 
pected Caleb in from the Ledge, and wanted to 
have the house ready for his first Sunday at 
home. 

When Mrs. Bell announced breakfast. Cap- 
tain Joe, in his shirt-sleeves, took his seat at the 
head of the table, and with a hearty, welcoming 
wave of his hand invited everybody to sit down, 
— Carleton first, of course, he being the man 


66 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

of authority, and representing to the working- 
man that mysterious, intangible power known 
as the ‘‘government.” 

The superintendent generally stopped in at 
the captain’s if the morning were stormy ; it 
was nearer his lodgings than the farmhouse 
where he took his meals — and then breakfast 
at the captain’s cost nothing. He had come in 
on this particular day ostensibly to protest about 
the sloop’s having gone to the Ledge without a 
notification to him. He had begun by saying, 
with much bluster, that he did n’t know about 
the one stone that Caleb West was “ reported ” 
to have set ; that nothing would be accepted 
unless he was satisfied, and nothing paid for by 
the department without his signature. But he 
ended in great good humor when the captain 
invited him to breakfast and placed him at his 
own right hand. Carleton liked little distinc- 
tions when made in his favor ; he considered 
them due to his position. 

The superintendent was a type of his class. 
His appointment at Shark Ledge Light had 
been secured through the efforts of a brother- 
in-law who was a custom-house inspector. Be- 
fore his arrival at Keyport he had never seen a 
stone laid or a batch of concrete mixed. To 
this ignorance of the ordinary methods of con- 
struction was added an overpowering sense of 
his own importance coupled with the knowledge 
that the withholding of a certificate — the super- 


AUNTY BELL’S KITCHEN 67 

intendent could choose his own time for giving 
it — might embarrass everybody connected with 
the work. He was not dishonest, however, and 
had no faults more serious than those of igno- 
rance, self-importance, and conceit. This last 
broke out in his person : he wore a dyed mus- 
tache, a yellow diamond shirt-pin, and on Sun- 
days patent leather shoes one size too small. 

Captain Joe understood the superintendent 
thoroughly. “ Ain t it cur’us,” he would some- 
times say, “ that a man ’s old ’s him is willin’ ter 
set round all day knowin’ he don’t know nothin’, 
never lamin’, an’ ^^it alius afeard some un ’ll 
find it out ? ” Then, as the helplessness of the 
man rose in his mind, he would add, “Well, 
poor critter, somebody ’s got ter support him ; 
guess the guv’ment ’s th’ best paymaster fur 
him.” 

When breakfast was over, the skipper of the 
Screamer dropped in to make his first visit, 
shaking the water from his oilskins as he 
entered. 

“Pleased to meet yer. Mis’ Bell,” he said in 
his bluff, wholesome way, acknowledging the 
captain’s introduction to Mrs. Bell, then casting 
his eyes about for a seat, and finally taking an 
edge of a window-sill among the sou’ westers. 

“ Give me your hat an’ coat, and do have 
breakfast. Captain Brandt,” said Mrs. Bell in a 
tone as hearty as if it were the first meal she 
had served that day. 


68 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“No, thank ye, I had some ’board sloop,” 
replied Captain Brandt. 

“ Here, cap’n, take my seat,” said Captain 
Joe. “I’m goin’ out ter see how the weather 
looks.” He picked up the first hat he came to, 
— as was his custom, — and disappeared through 
the open door, followed by nearly all the sea- 
faring men in the room. 

As the men passed out, each one reached for 
his hat and oilskins hanging behind the wooden 
door, and waddling out stood huddled together 
in the driving rain like yellow penguins, their 
eyes turned skyward. 

Each man diagnosed the weather for himself. 
Six doctors over a patient with a hidden disease 
are never so impressive nor so obstinate as six 
seafaring men over a probable change of wind. 
The drift of the cloud-rack scudding in from 
the sea, the clearness of the air, the current of 
the upper clouds, were each silently considered. 
No opinions were given. It was for Captain 
Joe to say what he thought of the weather. 
Breaking clouds meant one kind of work for 
them, — fitting derricks, perhaps, — a con- 
tinued storm meant another. 

If the captain arrived at any conclusion, it 
was not expressed. He had walked down to 
the gate and leaned over the palings, looking 
up at the sky across the harbor, and then 
behind him toward the west. The rain trickled 
unheeded down the borrowed sou’wester and 


AUNTY BELL’S KITCHEN 69 

fell upon his blue flannel shirt. He looked up 
and down the road at the passers-by tramping 
along in the wet : the twice-a-day postman, 
wearing an old army coat and black rubber 
cape ; the little children crowding together 
under one umbrella, only the child in the mid- 
dle keeping dry ; and the butcher in the meat 
wagon with its white canvas cover and swing- 
ing scales. Suddenly he gave a quick cry, 
swung back the gate with the gesture of a rol- 
licking boy, and threw both arms wide open in 
a mock attempt to catch a young girl who 
sprang past him and dashed up the broad walk 
with a merry ringing laugh that brought every 
one to the outer door. 

‘'Well, if I live!” exclaimed Mrs. Bell. 
“ Mary Peebles, you jes’ come here an’ see 
Betty West. Ain’t you got no better sense, 
Betty, than to come down in all this soakin’ 
rain ? Caleb ’ll be dreadful mad, an’ I don’t 
blame him a mite. Come right in this minute 
and take that shawl off.” 

“I ain’t wet a bit. Aunty Bell,” laughed 
Betty, entering the room. “ I got Caleb’s high 
rubber boots on. Look at ’em. Ain’t they 
big ! ” showing the great soles with all the ani- 
mation of a child. “ An’ this shawl don’t let no 
water through nowhere. Oh, but did n’t it blow 
round my porch las’ night 1 ” Then turning to 
the captain, who had followed close behind, “ I 
think you ’re real mean, Cap’n Joe, to keep 


70 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Caleb out all night on the Ledge. I was that 
dead lonely I could’er cried. Oh, is Mr. San- 
ford here ? ” she asked quickly, and with a little 
shaded tone of deference in her voice, as she 
caught sight of him in the next room. “I 
thought he ’d gone to New York. How do you 
do, Mr. Sanford ? ” with another laugh and a nod 
of her head, which Sanford as kindly returned. 

“We come purty nigh leavin’ everybody on 
the Ledge las’ night, Betty, an’ the sloop too,” 
said Captain Joe, “cutting” his eye at the 
skipper as he spoke. Then in a more serious 
tone, “ I lef’ Caleb a-purpose, child. We got 
some stavin’ big derricks to set, an’ Mr. Sanford 
wants ’em up week arter next, an’ there ain’t 
nobody kin fix the anchor sockets but me an’ 
Caleb. He ’s at work on ’em now, an’ I had to 
come back to git th’ bands on ’em. He ’ll be 
home for Sunday, little gal.” 

“Well, you jes’ better, or I’ll lock up my 
place an’ come right down here to Aunty Bell. 
Caleb was n’t home but two nights last week, 
and it ’s only the beginnin’ of summer. I ain’t 
like Aunty Bell, — she can’t get lonely. Don’t 
make no difference whether you ’re home or 
not, this place is so chuck-full of folks you 
can’t turn round in it ; but ’way up where I 
live, you don’t see a soul sometimes all day but 
a peddler. Oh, I jes’ can’t stand it, an’ I won’t. 
Land sakes. Aunty Bell, what a lot of folks 
you ’ve had for breakfast ! ” 


AUNTY BELL’S KITCHEN 


71 


With another laugh she turned to the table, 
picked up a pile of plates, and carried them 
into the pantry to Miss Peebles, who was there 
helping in the wash-up. 

Lacey, who had stopped to look after his 
drying coat when the men went out, watched 
her slender, graceful figure, and bright, cheery, 
joyous face, full of dimples and color and 
sparkle, the hair in short curls all over her head, 
the throat plump and white, the little ears nes- 
tling and half hidden. 

She had been brought up in the next village, 
two miles away, and had come over every morn- 
ing, when she was a girl, to Miss Peebles’s 
school. Almost everybody knew her and loved 
her ; Captain Joe as much as if she had been 
his own child. She filled a place in his heart 
of which he seldom spoke, — never to Aunty 
Bell, — a place empty until Betty came, and al- 
ways aching since he and his wife had laid 
away, on the hill back of the village church, 
the only child that had ever come to them. 

When Caleb gave up the lightship Captain 
Joe had established him .with Betty’s mother 
as boarder, and that was how the marriage 
came about. 

When Betty returned to the room again, her 
arms loaded with plates, Carleton and Lacey 
were standing. 

“ Take this seat ; you must be tired walking 
down so far,” said Carleton, with a manner 


72 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

never seen in him except when some pretty 
woman was about. 

‘‘No, I ’m not a bit tired, but I ’ll set down 
till I get these boots off. Aunty Bell, can you 
lend me a pair of slippers ? One of these plaguy 
boots leaks.” 

“ I ’ll take ’em off,” offered Carleton, with a 
gesture of gallantry. 

“You’ll do nothin’ of the kind!” she ex- 
claimed, with a toss of her head. “ I ’ll take 
’em off myself,” and she turned her back, and 
slipped the boots from under her dress. “ But 
you can take ’em to Aunty Bell an’ swap ’em 
for her slippers,” she added, with a merry 
laugh at the humor of her making the immacu- 
late Carleton carry off Caleb’s old boots. The 
slippers on, she thanked him, with a nod, and, 
turning her head, caught sight of Lacey. 

“What are you doing here. Bill Lacey 
she asked. “ Why ain’t you at the Ledge ? ” 

Although the young rigger had been but a 
short time on the captain’s force, he had em- 
ployed every leisure moment of it in making 
himself agreeable to the wives of the men. To 
Betty his attentions had been most marked. 

He had saved her the best of the long thin 
shavings that curled from his spoke-shave when 
he was planing the huge derrick masts on the 
wharf. And when she came to gather them as 
kindling for her stove, he had done everything 
in his power to win her confidence, detaining 


AUNTY BELL’S KITCHEN 


73 


her in talk long after the other women had de- 
parted with their loads. 

When he answered her sally to-day, his white 
teeth gleamed under his curling mustache. 

Captain wants me,” he said, ‘‘ to fit some 
bands round the new derricks. We expect ’em 
over from Medford to-day, if it clears up.” 

‘‘ An’ there ain’t no doubt but what ye ’ll get 
yer job, Billy,” burst out the captain ; “ it ’s 
breakin’ now over Crotch Island,” and he 
bustled again out of the open door, the men 
who had followed him turning back after him. 

Carleton waited until he became convinced 
that no part of his immaculate personality 
burdened Betty’s mind, and then, a little dis- 
concerted by her evident preference for Lacey, 
joined Sanford in the next room. There he 
renewed his complaint about the enrockment 
block having been placed without a notification 
to him, and it was not until Sanford invited 
him on the tug for a run to Medford to inspect 
Mrs. Leroy’s new dining-room that he became 
pacified. 

As Mrs. Bell and the schoolmistress. Miss 
Peebles, were still in the pantry, a rattling of 
china marking their progress, the kitchen was 
empty except for Lacey and Betty. The young 
rigger, seeing no one within hearing, crossed 
the room, and, bending over Betty’s chair, said 
in a low tone, “ Why did n’t you come down 
to the dock yesterday when we was a-hoistin’ 


74 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

the stone on the Screamer? ’Most everybody 
’longshore was there. I had some chips saved 
for ye.” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” returned Betty indif- 
ferently. 

“Ye ought’er seen the old man yesterday,” 
continued Lacey ; “ me an’ him held the guy, 
and he was a-blowin’ like a porpoise.” 

Betty did not answer. She knew how old 
Caleb was. 

“ Had n’t been for me it would’er laid him 
out.” 

The girl started, and her eyes flashed. Bill 
Lacey, Caleb knows more in a minute than 
you ever will in your whole life. You shan’t 
talk that way about him, neither.” 

“Well, who ’s a-talkin’ ? ” said Lacey, looking 
down at her, more occupied with the curve of 
her throat than with his reply. 

“You are, an’ you know it,” she answered 
sharply. 

“ I did n’t mean nothin’, Betty. I ain’t got 
nothin’ agin him ’cept his gittin’ you!' Then 
in a lower tone, “ You need n’t take my head 
off, if I did say it.” 

“I ain’t takin’ your head off, Billy.” She 
looked into his eyes for the first time, her voice 
softening. She was never angry with any* one 
for long; besides, she felt older than he, and 
a certain boyishness in him appealed to her. 

“You spoke awful cross,” he said, bending 


AUNTY BELL’S KITCHEN 


75 


until his lips almost touched her curls, “ an’ you 
know, Betty, there ain’t a girl, married or single, 
up ’n’ down this shore nor nowheres else, that I 
think as much of as I do you, an’ if ” — 

“ Here, now. Bill Lacey ! ” some one shouted. 

The young rigger stepped back, and turned 
his head. 

Captain Joe was standing in the doorway, with 
one hand on the frame, an ugly, determined 
expression filling his eyes. 

“They want ye down ter the dock, young 
feller, jes’ ’s quick ’s ye kin get there.” 

Lacey’s face was scarlet. He looked at Cap- 
tain Joe, picked up his hat, and walked down 
the garden path without a word. 

Betty ran in to Aunty Bell. 

When the two men reached the swinging-gate. 
Captain Joe laid his hand on Lacey’s shoulder, 
whirled him round suddenly, and said in a calm, 
decided voice that carried conviction in every 
tone, “ I don’t say nothin’, an’ maybe ye don’t 
mean nothin’, but I ’ve been a-watchin’ ye lately, 
an’ I don’t like yer ways. One thing, howsom- 
ever, I ’ll tell ye, an’ I don’t want ye ter forgit 
it : if I ever ketch ye a-foolin’ round Caleb 
West’s lobster-pots, I ’ll break yer damned 
head. Do ye hear ? ” 


CHAPTER VI 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 

Sanford’s apartments were in gala-dress. 
Everywhere there was a suggestion of spring 
in all its brightness and promise. The divans 
of the salon were gay with new cushions of 
corn-yellow and pale green. The big table was 
resplendent in a new cloth, — a piece of richly 
colored Oriental stuff that had been packed 
away and forgotten in the Venetian wedding- 
chest that stood near the window. All the pipes, 
tobacco pouches, smoking - jackets, slippers, 
canes, Indian clubs, dumb-bells, and other bach- 
elor belongings scattered about the rooms had 
been tucked out of sight, while books and 
magazines that had lain for weeks heaped up 
on chairs and low shelves, and unframed prints 
and photographs that had rested on the floor 
propped up against the wall and furniture, had 
been hidden in dark corners or hived in their 
several portfolios. 

On the table stood a brown majolica jar 
taller than the lamp, holding a great mass of 
dogwood and apple blossoms, their perfume 
filling the room. Every vase, umbrella jar. 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 


77 


jug, and bit of pottery that could be pressed 
into service, was doing duty as flower-holder, 
while over the mantel and along the tops of 
the bookcases, and even over the doors them- 
selves, streamed festoons of blossoms inter- 
twined with smilax and trailing vines. 

Against the tapestries covering the walls of 
the dining-room hung big wreaths of laurel tied 
with ribbons. One of these was studded with 
violets, forming the initials H. S. The mantel 
was a bank of flowers. From the four antique 
silver church lamps suspended in the four cor- 
ners of the room swung connecting festoons of 
smilax and blossoms. The dinner-table itself 
was set with the best silver, glass, and appoint- 
ments that Sanford possessed. Some painted 
shades he had never seen before topped the tall 
wax candles. 

Sanford smiled when he saw that covers had 
been laid for but flve. That clever fellow Jack 
Hardy had carried his point, — all those deli- 
cate questions relating to the number and the 
selection of the guests had been left to Mrs. 
Leroy. She had proved her exquisite tact : Bock 
had been omitted, there were no superfluous 
women, and Jack could have his tete-a-tete with 
Helen undisturbed. It was just as well, San- 
ford thought. With these two young persons 
happy, the dinner was sure to be a success. 

Upon entering his office, he found that the 
decorative raid had extended even to this his 


78 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

most private domain. The copper helmet of a 
diving-dress — one he sometimes used himself 
when necessity required — had been propped 
up over his desk, the face-plate unscrewed, and 
the hollow opening filled with blossoms, their 
leaves curling about the brass buttons of the 
collar. The very drawing-boards had been 
pushed against the wall, and the rows of shelves 
holding his charts and detailed plans had been 
screened from sight by a piece of Venetian 
silk exhumed from the capacious interior of the 
old chest. 

The corners of Sam’s mouth touched his 
ears when Sanford looked at him, and every 
tooth was lined up with a broad grin. 

“ Doan’ ask me who done it, sah. I ain’t 
had nuffin to do wid it, — wid nuffin but de 
table. I sot dat.” 

“Has Mrs. Leroy been here.^” Sanford 
asked, coming into the dining-room, and looking 
again at the initials on the wall. He knew that 
Jack could never have perfected the delicate 
touch alone. 

“Yaas’r, an’ Major Slocomb an’ Mr. Hardy 
done come too. De gen’lemen bofe gone ober 
to de club. De major say he cornin’ back 
soon ’s ever you gets here. But I ain’t ter tell 
nuffin ’bout de flowers, sah. Massa Jack say 
ef I do he brek my neck, an’ I ’spec’s he will. 
But Lord, sah, dese ain’t no flowers. Look at 
dis,” he added, uncovering a great bunch of 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 79 

American Beauties, — “ dat ’s ter go ’longside 
de lady’s plate. An’ dat ain’t ha’f of ’em. I 
got mos’ a peck of dese yer rose-water roses in 
de pantry. Massa Jack gwine ter ask yer to 
sprinkle ’em all ober de table-cloth ; says dat ’s 
de way dey does in de fust famblies South.’’ 

“ Have the flowers I ordered come ? ” San- 
ford asked, as he turned towards the sideboard 
to fill his best decanter. 

“Yaas ’r, got ’em in de ice-chest. But 
Massa Jack say dese yer rose-water roses on 
de table-cloth ’s a extry touch ; don’t hab dese 
high-toned South’n ladies ebery day, he say.” 

Sanford reentered the salon and looked 
about. Every trace of its winter dress too had 
gone. Even the heavy curtains at the windows 
had been replaced by some of a thin yellow silk. 

“That ’s so like Kate,” he said to himself. 
“She means that Helen and Jack shall be 
happy, at any rate. She ’s missed it herself, 
poor girl. It ’s an infernal shame. Bring in 
the roses, Sam : I ’ll sprinkle them now before 
I dress. Any letters except these he added, 
looking through a package on the table, a 
shade of disappointment crossing his face as 
he pushed them back unopened. 

“Yaas’r, one on yo’ bureau dat ’s jus’ 
come.” 

Sanford forgot Jack’s roses, and with a quick 
movement of his hand drew the curtains of his 
bedroom and disappeared inside. The letter 


8o CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

was there. He seldom came home from any 
journey without finding one of these little mis- 
sives to greet him. He broke the seal and was 
about to read the contents when the major’s 
cheery, buoyant voice was heard in the outside 
room. The next instant he had pushed the 
curtains aside and peered in. 

“ Where is he, Sam ? In here, did you say ? ” 

Not to have been able to violate the seclusion 
of Sanford’s bedroom at all times, night or day, 
would have grievously wounded the sensibilities 
of the distinguished Pocomokian ; it would have 
implied a reflection on the closeness of their 
friendship. It was true he had met Sanford 
but half a dozen times, and it was equally true 
that he had never before crossed the threshold 
of this particular room. But these trifling ‘ 
drawbacks, mere incidental stages jn a rapidly 
growing friendship, were immaterial to him. 

“My dear boy,” he cried, as he entered the 
room with arms wide open, “but it does my 
heart good to see you ! ” and he hugged Sanford 
enthusiastically, patting his host’s back with his 
fat hands over the spot where the suspenders 
crossed. Then he held him at arm’s length. 

“ Let me look at you. Splendid, by gravy ! 
fresh as a rose, suh, handsome as a picture ! 
Just a trace of care under the eyes, though. I 
see the nights of toil, the hours of suffering. 
I wonder the brain of man can stand it. But 
the building of a lighthouse, the illumining of 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE Sr 

a pathway in the sea for those buffeting with 
the waves, — it is gloriously humane, suh ! ” 

Suddenly his manner changed, and in a tone 
as grave and serious as if he were full partner 
in the enterprise and responsible for its success, 
the major laid his hand, this time confidingly, 
on Sanford’s shirt-sleeve, and said, How are 
we getting on at the Ledge, suh ? Last time 
we talked it over, we were solving the problem 
of a colossal mass of — of — some stuff or other 
that” — 

Concrete,” suggested Sanford, with an air 
as serious as that of the major. He loved to 
humor him. 

“ That ’s it, — concrete ; the name had for 
the moment escaped me, — concrete, suh, that 
was to form the foundation of the lighthouse.” 

Sanford assured the major that the concrete 
was being properly amalgamated, and discussed 
the laying of the mass in the same technical 
terms he would have used to a brother engineer, 
smiling meanwhile as the stream of the Poco- 
mokian’s questions ran on. He liked the major’s 
glow and sparkle. He enjoyed most of all the 
never ending enthusiasm of the man, — that 
spontaneous outpouring which, like a bubbling 
spring, flows unceasingly, and always with the 
coolest and freshest water of the heart. 

“ And how is Miss Shirley ? ” asked the young 
engineer, throwing the inquiry into the shallows 
of the talk as a slight temporary dam. 


82 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ Like a moss rosebud, suh, with the dew on 
it. She and Jack have gone out for a drive in 
Jack’s cyart. He left me at the club, and I 
went over to his apartments to dress. I am 
staying with Jack, you know. Helen is with a 
school friend. I know, of co’se, that yo’r dinner 
is not until eight o’clock, but I could not wait 
longer to grasp yo’r hand. Do you know, San- 
ford,” with sudden animation and in a rising 
voice, “ that the more I see of you, the more 
I” — 

“And so you are coming to New York to 
live, major,” said Sanford, dropping another 
pebble at the right moment into the very middle 
of the current. 

The major recovered, filled, and broke through 
in a fresh place. The new questions of his host 
only varied the outlet of his eloquence. 

“ Coming, suh ? I have come. I have leased 
a po’tion of my estate to some capitalists from 
Philadelphia who are about embarking in a 
strawberry enterprise of very great magnitude. 
I want to talk to you about it later.” (He had 
rented one half of it — the dry half, the half a 
little higher than the salt-marsh — to a huckster 
from Philadelphia, who was trying to raise early 
vegetables, and whose cash advances upon the 
rent had paid the overdue interest on the mort- 
gage, leaving a margin hardly more than suffi- 
cient to pay for the suit of clothes he stood in, 
and his traveling expenses.) 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 83 

By this time the constantly increasing pres- 
sure of his caller’s enthusiasm had seriously 
endangered the possibility of Sanford’s dress- 
ing for dinner. He glanced several times un- 
easily at his watch, lying open on the bureau 
before him, and at last, with a hurried “ Excuse 
me, major,” disappeared into his bathroom, and 
closed its flood-gate of a door, thus effectually 
shutting off the major’s overflow, now perilously 
near the danger-line. 

The Pocomokian paused for a moment, looked 
wistfully at the blank door, and, recognizing the 
impossible, called to Sam and suggested a cock- 
tail as a surprise for his master when he appeared 
again. Sam brought the ingredients on a tray, 
and stood by admiringly (Sam always regarded 
him as a superior being) while the major mixed 
two comforting concoctions, — the one already 
mentioned for Sanford, and the other designed 
for the especial sustenance and delectation of 
the distinguished Pocomokian himself. 

This done he took his leave, having infused 
into the apartment, in ten short minutes, more 
sparkle, freshness, and life than it had known 
since his last visit. 

Sanford saw the cocktail on his bureau when 
he entered the room again, but forgot it in his 
search for the letter he had laid aside on the 
major’s entrance. Sam found the invigorat- 
ing compound when dinner was over, and im- 
mediately emptied it into his own person. 


84 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ Please don’t be cross, Henry, if you can’t 
find all your things,” the letter read. ‘‘Jack 
Hardy wanted me to come over and help him 
arrange the rooms as a surprise for the Mary- 
land girl. He says there’s nothing between 
them, but I don’t believe him. The blossoms 
came from Newport. I hope you had time to 
go to Medford and find out about my dining- 
room, and that everything is going on well at 
the Ledge. I will see you to-night at eight. 

K. P. L.” 

Sanford, with a smile of pleasure, shut the 
letter in his bureau drawer, and entering the 
dining-room, picked up the basket of roses and 
began those little final touches about the room 
and table which he never neglected. He lighted 
the tapers in the antique lamps that hung from 
the ceiling, readjusting the ruby glass holders ; 
he kindled the wicks in some quaint brackets 
over the sideboard ; he moved the Venetian 
flagons and decanters nearer the centrepiece of 
flowers, — those he had himself ordered for his 
guests and their chaperon, — and cutting the 
stems from the rose-water roses sprinkled them 
over the snowy linen. 

With the soft glow of the candles the room 
took on a mellow, subdued tone ; the pink roses 
on the cloth, the rosebuds on the candle-shades, 
and the mass of Mermets in the centre being 
the distinctive features, and giving the key-note 
of color to the feast. To Sanford a dinner-table 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 85 

with its encircling guests was always a palette. 
He knew just where the stronger tones of black 
coats and white shirt-fronts placed beside the 
softer tints of fair shoulders and bright faces 
must be relieved by blossoms in perfect har- 
mony, and he understood to a nicety the exact 
values of the minor shades in linen, glass, and 
silver, in the making of the picture. 

The guests arrived within a few minutes of 
one another. Mrs. Leroy, in yellow satin with 
big black bows caught up on her shoulder, a 
string of pearls about her throat, came first : 
she generally did when dining at Sanford’s ; it 
gave her an opportunity to have a chance word 
with him before the arrival of the other guests, 
and to give a supervising glance over the ap- 
pointments of his table. And then Sanford 
always deferred to her in questions of taste. It 
was one of the nights when she looked barely 
twenty-five, and seemed the fresh, joyous girl 
Sanford had known : ^re her marriage. The 
ever present sadness which her friends often 
read in her face had gone. To-night she was 
all gayety and happiness, and her eyes, under 
their long lashes, were purple as the violets 
which she wore. Helen Shirley was arrayed in 
white muslin, — not a jewel, — her fair cheeks 
rosy with excitement. Jack was immaculate 
in white tie and high collar, while the self-in- 
stalled, presiding genial of the feast, the major, 
appeared in a costume that by its ill-fitting 


86 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

wrinkles betrayed its pedigree, — a velvet-col- 
lared swallow-tail coat that had lost its one- 
time freshness in the former service of some 
friend, a skin-tight pair of trousers, and a shoe- 
string cravat that looked as if it had belonged 
to Major Talbot himself (his dead wife’s first 
husband), and that was now so loosely tied it 
had all it could do to keep its place. 

“No one would have thought of all this but 
you, Kate,” said Sanford, lifting Mrs. Leroy’s 
cloak from her shoulders. 

“Don’t thank me, Henry. All I did,” she 
answered, laughing, “ was to put a few flowers 
about, and to have my maid poke a lot of man- 
things under the sofas and behind the chairs, 
and take away those horrid old covers and cur- 
tains. I know you ’ll never forgive me when 
you want something to-morrow you can’t find, 
but Jack begged so hard I could n’t help it. 
How did you like the candle-shades } I made 
them myself,” she added, tipping her head on 
one side like a wren. 

“ I knew you did, and I recognized your 
handiwork .somewhere else,” Sanford answered, 
with a significant shrug of his shoulders towards 
the dining-room, where the initial wreath was 
hung. 

“ It is a bower of beauty, my dear madam!” 
exclaimed the major, bowing like a French 
dancing-master of the old school when Sanford 
presented him, one hand on his waistcoat 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 


87 


buttons, the right foot turned slightly out. “ I 
did not know when I walked through these 
rooms this afternoon whose fair hands had 
wrought the wondrous change. Madam, I 
salute you,’* and he raised her hand to his lips. 

Mrs. Leroy looked first in astonishment as 
she drew back her fingers. Then as she saw 
his evident sincerity, she made him an equally 
old-fashioned curtsy, and broke into a peal of 
laughter. 

While this bit of comedy was being enacted. 
Jack, eager to show Helen some of Sanford’s 
choicest bits, led her to the mantelpiece, over 
which hung a sketch by Smearly, — the ori- 
ginal of his Academy picture ; pointed out the 
famous wedding-chest and some of the accou- 
trements over the door ; and led her into the 
private office, now lighted by half a dozen can- 
dles, one illuminating the copper diving-helmet 
with its face-plate of flowers. Helen, who had 
never been in a bachelor’s apartment before, 
thought it another and an enchanted world. 
Everything suggested a surprise and a mystery. 

But it was when she entered the dining-room 
on Sanford’s arm that she gave way completely. 
“ I never saw anything so charming ! ” she ex- 
claimed. And H. S. all in a lovely wreath — 
why, these your initials, Mr. Sanford,” look- 
ing up innocently into his eyes. 

Sanford smiled quizzically, and a shade of 
cruel disappointment crossed Jack’s face. Mrs. 


88 


CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


Leroy broke into another happy, contagious 
laugh, and her eyes, often so impenetrable in 
their sadness, danced with merriment. 

The major watched them all with ill-disguised 
delight, and, beginning to understand the vary- 
ing expressions flitting over his niece’s face, 
said, with genuine emotion, emphasizing his 
outburst by kissing her rapturously on the 
cheek, “ You dear little girl, you, don’t you know 
your own name ? H. S. stands for Helen 
Shirley, not Henry Sanford.” 

Helen gave a little start, avoiding Jack’s 
gaze, and blushed scarlet. She might have 
known, she said to herself, that Jack would do 
something lovely, just to surprise her. Why 
did she betray herself so easily } 

When, a moment later, in removing her 
glove, she brushed Jack’s hand, lying on the 
table-cloth beside her own, the slightest possi- 
ble pressure of her little finger against his own 
conveyed her thanks. 

Everybody was brimful of happiness : Helen 
radiant with the inspiration of new surround- 
ings so unlike those of the- simple home she 
had left the day before ; Jack riding in a chariot 
of soap-bubbles, with butterflies for leaders, 
and drinking in every word that fell from 
Helen’s lips ; the major suave and unctuous, 
with an old-time gallantry that delighted his 
admirers, boasting now of his ancestry, now of 
his horses, now of his rare old wines at home ; 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 89 

Sanford leading the distinguished Poconiokian 
into still more airy flights, or engaging him in 
assumed serious conversation whenever that 
obtuse gentleman insisted on dragging Jack 
down from his butterfly heights with Helen, to 
discuss with him some prosaic features of the 
club-house at Crab Island ; while Mrs. Leroy, 
happier than she had been in weeks, watched 
Helen and Jack with undisguised pleasure, or 
laughed at the major’s good-natured egotism, 
his wonderful reminiscences and harmless pre- 
tensions, listening between pauses to the young 
engineer by her side, whose heart was to her an 
open book. 

Coffee was served on the balcony, the guests 
seating themselves in the easy-chairs. Mrs. 
Leroy selected a low camp-stool, resting her 
back against the railing, where the warm tones 
of the lamp fell upon her dainty figure. She 
was at her best to-night. Her prematurely 
gray hair, piled in fluffy waves upon her head 
and held in place by a long jewel-tipped pin, gave 
an indescribable softness and charm to the rosy 
tints of her skin. Her blue-gray eyes, now 
deep violet, flashed and dimmed under the 
moving shutters of the lids, as the light of her 
varying emotions stirred their depths. About 
her every movement was that air of distinction, 
and repose, and a certain exquisite grace which 
never left her, and which never ceased to have 
its fascination for her friends. Added to this 


90 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

were a sprightliness and a vivacity which, 
although often used as a mask to hide a heavy 
heart, were to-night inspired by her sincere 
enjoyment of the pleasure she and the others 
had given to the young Maryland girl and her 
lover. 

When Sam brought the coffee-tray she in- 
sisted on filling the cups herself, dropping in 
the sugar with a dainty movement of her fingers 
that was bewitching, laughing as merrily as if 
there had never been a sorrow in her life. At 
no time was she more fascinating to her ad- 
mirers than when at a task like this. The 
very cup she handled was instantly invested 
with a certain preciousness, and became a thing 
to be touched as delicately and as lightly as the 
fingers that had prepared it. 

The only one who for the time was outside 
the spell of her influence was Jack Hardy. He 
had taken a seat on the floor of the balcony, 
next the wall — and Helen. 

^‘Jack, you lazy, fellow,” said Mrs. Leroy, 
with mock indignation, as she rose to her feet, 
‘‘get out of my way, or I ’ll spill the coffee. 
Miss Shirley, why don’t you make him go 
inside.^ He’s awfully in the way here.” 

One of Jack’s favorite positions, when Helen 
was near, was at her feet. He had learned 
this one the summer before at her house on 
Crab Island, when they would sit for hours on 
the beach. 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 91 

“I’m not in anybody’s way, my clear Mrs. 
Leroy. My feet are tied in a Chinese knot 
under me, and my back has grown fast to the 
rain-spout. Major, will you please say some- 
thing nice to Mrs. Leroy and coax her inside ? ” 

Sam had rolled a small table, holding a flagon 
of cognac and some crushed ice, beside the 
major, who sat half buried in the cushions of 
one of Sanford’s divans. The Pocomokian 
struggled to his feet. 

“You mustn’t move, major,” Mrs. Leroy 
called. “ I ’m not coming in. I ’m going to 
stay out here in this lovely moonlight, if one of 
these very polite young gentlemen will bring 
me an armchair.” With a look of pretended 
dignity at Jack and Sanford. 

“Take seat,” said Jack, with a laugh, 
springing to his feet, suddenly realizing Mrs. 
Leroy’s delicate but pointed rebuke. “Come, 
Miss Helen,” a better and more retired corner 
having at this moment suggested itself to 
him, “we won’t stay where we are abused. 
Let us join the major.” And with an arm to 
Miss Shirley and a sweeping bow to Mrs. 
Leroy, Jack walked straight to the divan near- 
est the curtains. 

When Helen and Jack were out of hearing, 
Mrs. Leroy looked toward the major, and, 
reassured of his entire absorption in his own 
personal comfort, turned to Sanford, and said 
in low, earnest tones, in which there was not a 


92 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

trace of the gayety of a moment before, “ Can 
the new sloop lay the stones, Henry? You 
have n’t told me a word yet of what you have 
been doing for the last few days at the Ledge.” 

“I think so, Kate,” replied Sanford in an 
equally serious voice. “We laid one yester- 
day before the easterly gale caught us. You 
got my telegram, did n’t you ? ” 

“ Of course ! but I was anxious for all that. 
Ever since I had that talk with General Barton 
I ’ve felt nervous over the laying of those stones. 
He frightened me when he said no one of the 
Board at Washington believed you could do 
it. It would be so awful if your plan should 
fail.” 

“ But it ’s not going to fail, Kate. I can do 
it, and will.” There was a decided tone in his 
voice, and his eyebrows were knitted in the way 
she loved : she read his determination in every 
word and look. “ All I wanted was a proper 
boat, and I ’ve got that. I watched her day 
before yesterday. I was a little nervous until I 
saw her lower the first stone. Her captain is 
a plucky fellow, — Captain Joe likes him im- 
mensely. I wish you could have been there 
to see how cool he was, — not a bit flustered 
when he saw the rocks under the bow of his 
sloop.” 

Kate handed him her empty coffee-cup, and 
going to the edge of the balcony rested her 
elbows on the railing, a favorite gesture of 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 93 

hers, and looked down on the treetops of the 
square. 

“ Caleb West, of course, went down with the 
first stone, did n’t he ” she asked when he 
joined her again. She knew Caleb’s name as 
she did those of all the men in Sanford’s em- 
ploy. There was no detail of the work he had 
not explained to her. 

And was the sea-bottom as you expected to 
find it ” she added. 

“Even better,” he answered, eager to discuss 
his plans with her. “Caleb reports that as 
soon as he gets the first row of enrockment 
stones set, the others will lie up like bricks. 
And it ’s all coming out exactly as we have 
planned it, too, Kate.” 

He went over with her again, as he had done 
so many times before, all of his plans for carry- 
ing on the work and the difficulties that had 
threatened him. He talked of his hopes and 
fears, of his confidence in his men, his admira- 
tion for them, and his love for the work itself. 
To Sanford, as to many men, there were times 
when the sympathy and understanding of a 
woman, the generous faith and ready belief of 
one who listens only to encourage, became a 
necessity. To have talked to a man as he did 
to Kate would not only have bored his listener, 
but might have aroused a suspicion of his own 
professional ability. 

“I wonder what General Barton will think 


94 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

when he finds your plan succeeds ? He says 
everywhere that you cannot do it,” Kate con- 
tinued, with a certain pride in her voice, after 
listening to some further details of Sanford’s 
plans for placing the enrockment blocks. 

‘‘ I don’t know and I don’t care. It ’s hard 
to get these old-time engineers to believe in 
anything new, and this foundation is new. But 
all the same, I ’d rather pin my faith to Captain 
Joe than to any one of them. What we are 
doing at the Ledge, Kate, requires mental pluck 
and brute grit, — nothing else. Scientific en- 
gineering won’t help us a bit.” 

Sanford now stood erect, with face aglow 
and kindling eyes, his back to the balcony rail. 
Every inflection of his voice showed a keen 
interest in the subject. 

“ And yet, after all, Kate, I realize that my 
work is mere child’s play. Just see what other 
men have had to face. At Minot’s Ledge, you 
know, — the light off Boston, — they had to 
chisel down a submerged rock into steps, to get 
a footing for the tower. But three or four men 
could work at a time, and then at dead low 
water. They got only one hundred and thirty 
hours’ work the first year. The whole Atlantic 
rolled in on top of them, and there was no shel- 
ter from the wind. Until they got the bottom 
courses of their tower bolted to the steps they 
had cut in the rock, they had no footing at all, 
and had to do their work from a small boat. 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 


95 


Our artificial island helps us immensely ; we 
have something to stand on. And it was even 
worse at Tillamook Rock, on the Pacific coast. 
There the men were landed on a precipitous 
crag sticking up out of the sea, from breeches 
buoys slung to the masthead of a vessel. For 
weeks at a time the sea was so rough that no 
one could reach them. They were given up 
for dead once. All that time they were lying 
in canvas tents lashed down to the sides of the 
crag to keep them from being blown into rags. 
All they had to eat and drink for days was raw 
salt pork and the rain-water they caught from 
the tent covers. And yet those fellows stuck 
to it day and night until they had blasted off a 
place large enough to put a shanty on. Every 
bit of the material for that lighthouse, except- 
ing in the stillest weather, was landed from the 
vessel that brought it, by a line rigged from 
the masthead to the top of the crag ; and all 
this time, Kate, she was thrashing around under 
steam, keeping as close to the edge as she dared. 
Oh, I tell you, there is something stunning to 
me in such a battle with the elements ! ” 

Kate’s cheeks burned as Sanford talked on. 
She was no longer the dainty woman over the 
coffee-cups, nor the woman of the world she 
had been a few moments before, eager for the 
pleasure of assembled guests. 

Her eyes flashed with the intensity of her 
feelings. “ When you tell me such things. 


96 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Henry, I am all on fire,” she cried. Then she 
stopped as suddenly as if some unseen hand 
had been laid upon her, chilling and shriveling 
the hot burning words. The world is full of 
such great things to be done,” she sighed, ^'and 
I lead such a mean little life.” 

Sanford looked at her in undisguised admira- 
tion. Then, as he watched her, his heart smote 
him. He had not intended to wound her by 
his enthusiasm over his own work, nor to 
awaken in her any sense of her own disap- 
pointments ; he had only tried to allay her 
anxieties over his affairs. He knew by the 
force of her outburst that he had unconsciously 
stirred those deeper emotions, the strength of 
which really made her the help she was to him. 
But he never wanted them to cause her suffer- 
ing. 

These sudden transitions in her moods were 
not new to him. She was an April day in her 
temperament, and would often laugh the sun- 
niest of laughs when the rain of her tears was 
falling. These were really moods he loved. 

It was the present frame of mind, however, 
that he dreaded, and from, which he always 
tried to save her. It did not often show itself. 
She was too much a woman of the world to 
wear her heart upon her sleeve, and too good 
and tactful a friend to burden even Sanford with 
sorrows he could not lighten. He knew what 
had inspired the outburst, for he had known 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 


97 


her for years. He had witnessed the long 
years of silent suffering which she had borne 
so sweetly, — even cheerfully at times, — had 
seen with what restraint and self-control she 
had cauterized by silence and patient endur- 
ance every fresh wound, and had watched day 
by day the slow coming of the scars that drew 
all the tighter the outside covering of her 
heart. 

As he looked at her out of the corner of his 
eye, — she leaning over the balcony at his side, 
— he could see that the tears had gathered 
under her lashes. It was best to say nothing 
when she felt like this. He recognized that to 
have made her the more dissatisfied, even by 
that sympathy which he longed to give, would 
have hurt in her that which he loved and hon- 
ored most, — her silence, and her patient loy- 
alty to the man whose name she bore. “ She ’s 
had a letter from Leroy,” he said to himself, 
“and he’s done some other disgraceful thing, I 
suppose ; ” but to Kate he said nothing. 

Gradually he led the talk back to Keyport, 
this time telling her of his men and their pecu- 
liarities and humors ; of Caleb and his young 
and pretty wife ; and of Aunty Bell’s watchful 
care over his comfort whenever he spent the 
night at Captain Joe’s. 

Nothing had disturbed the other guests. 
The clink of the major’s glass and the inter- 
mittent gurgle of the rapidly ebbing decanter 


98 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

as Sam supplied his wants could still be heard 
from the softly lighted room. On the fore- 
ordained divan, half hidden by a curtain, sat 
Jack and Helen, their shoulders touching, 
studying the contents of a portfolio, — some 
of the drawings upside down, their low talk 
broken now and then by a happy, irrelevant 
laugh. 

By this time the moon had risen over the 
treetops, the tall buildings far across the quad- 
rangle breaking the sky-line. Below could be 
seen the night life of the Park : miniature fig- 
ures strolling about under the trees, flashing in 
brilliant light or swallowed up in dense shadow, 
as they passed through the glare of the rnany 
lamps scattered among the budding foliage ; a 
child romping with a dog, or a belated woman 
wheeling a baby carriage home. The night 
was still, the air soft and balmy ; only the hum 
of the busy street a block away could be heard 
where they stood. 

Suddenly the figure of a boy darted across 
the white patch of pavement below them. San- 
ford leaned far over the railing, a strange, un- 
reasoning dread in his heart. 

‘‘What is it, Henry.?” asked Mrs. Leroy. 

“ Looks like a messenger,” Sanford answered. 

Mrs. Leroy bent over the railing, and watched 
the boy spring up the low steps of the street 
door, ring the bell violently, and beat an im- 
patient tattoo with his foot. 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE 


99 


“ Whom do you want ? ” Sanford called gently. 

The boy looked up, and, seeing the two fig- 
ures on the balcony, answered, ‘^Mr. Henry 
Sanford. Got a death message.” 

“ A death message, did he say > ” gasped Mrs. 
Leroy. Her voice was almost a whisper. 

“ Yes ; don’t move.” He laid a hand on her 
arm and pointed toward the group inside. A 
quick, sharp contraction rose in his throat. 
“ Sam,” he called in a lowered tone. 

“ Yaas ’r, — cornin’ direc’ly.” 

“ Sam, there ’s a boy at the' outside door with 
a telegram. He says it ’s a death message. 
Get it, and tell the boy to wait. Go quietly, 
now, and let no one know. You will find me 
here.” 

Mrs. Leroy sank into a chair, her face in her 
hands. Sanford bent over her, his voice still 
calm. 

“ Don’t give way, Kate ; we shall know in a 
moment.” 

She grasped his hand and held on. “Oh, 
who do you suppose it is, Henry.^^ Will Sam 
never come.? ” 

While he was comforting her, urging her to 
be patient and not to let Helen hear, Sam re- 
entered the room, — his breath gone with the 
dash down and up three flights of stairs, — 
walked slowly toward the balcony, and handed 
Sanford a yellow envelope. Its contents were 
as follows : — 


100 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Screamer’s boiler exploded 7.40 to-night 
Mate killed ; Lacey and three men injured. 

Joseph Bell. 

Sanford looked hurriedly at his watch, for- 
getting, in the shock, to hand ,Mrs. Leroy the 
telegram. 

Mrs. Leroy caught his arm. “Tell me quick ! 
Who is it > ” 

“ Forgive me, dear Kate, but I was so knocked 
out. It is no one who belongs to you. It is the 
boiler of the Screamer that has burst. Three 
men are hurt,” reading the dispatch again me- 
chanically. “I wonder who they are.?” as if 
he expected to see their names added to its 
brief lines. 

For a moment he leaned back against the 
balcony, absorbed in deep thought. 

“Twenty-three minutes left,” he said to him- 
self, consulting his watch again. “ I must go 
at once ; they will need me.” 

She took the telegram from his hand. “ Oh, 
Henry, I am so sorry, — and the boat, too, you 
counted upon. Oh, how much trouble you have 
had over this work ! I wish you had never 
touched it ! ” she exclaimed, with the momentary 
weakness of the woman. “ But look ! read it 
again.” Her voice rose with a new hope in it. 
“ Do you see .? Captain Joe signs it, — he ’s not 
hurt ! ” 

Sanford patted her hand abstractedly, and 


A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE loi 

said, “Dear Kate,” but without looking at her 
or replying further. He was calculating whe- 
ther it would be possible for him to catch the 
midnight train and go to the relief of the men. 

“ Yes, I can just make it,” he said, half aloud, 
to himself. Then he turned to Sam, who stood 
trembling before him, looking first at Mrs. 
Leroy and then at his master, and said in an 
undertone, “ Sam, send that boy for a cab, and 
get my bag ready. I will change these clothes 
on the train. Ask Mr. Hardy to step here ; not 
a word, remember, about this telegram.” 

Jack came out laughing, and was about to 
break into some raillery, when he saw Mrs. 
Leroy’s face. 

Sanford touched his shoulder, and drew him 
one side out of sight of the inmates of the room. 
“ Jack, there has been an explosion at the work, 
and some of the men are badly hurt. Say no- 
thing to Helen until she gets home. I leave 
immediately for Keyport. Will you and the 
major please look after Mrs. Leroy ? ” 

Sanford’s guests followed him to the door of 
the corridor : Helen radiant, her eyes still dan- 
cing ; the major bland and courteous, his face 
without a ruffle; Jack and Mrs. Leroy appar- 
ently unmoved. 

“ Oh, I ’m so sorry you must go ! ” exclaimed 
Helen, holding out her hands. “ Mr. Hardy 
says you do nothing but live on the train. Thank 


102 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

you ever so much, dear Mr. Sanford ; I Ve had 
such a lovely time.” 

“ My dear suh,” said the major, ‘^this is posi- 
tively cruel ! This Hennessy ” — he was hold- 
ing his glass — “ is like a nosegay ; I hoped you 
would enjoy it with me. Let me go back and 
pour you out a drop before you go.” 

“ Why not wait until to-morrow } ” said Jack 
in perfunctory tones, the sympathetic pressure 
of his hand in Sanford’s belying their sincerity. 
“This night traveling will kill you, old man.” 

Sanford smiled as he returned the pressure, 
and, with his eyes resting on Helen’s joyous 
face, replied meaningly, “ Thank you. Jack ; it ’s 
all right, I see. Not a word until she gets 
home.” 

Helen’s evening had not been spoiled, at all 
events. 

Once outside in the corridor, — Sam down one 
flight of steps with Sanford’s bag and coat, — 
Mrs. Leroy half closed the door, and laying her 
hand on Sanford’s shoulder said, with a force 
and an earnestness that carried the ' keenest 
comfort straight to his heart, “ I ’ve seen you 
in worse places than this, Henry ; you always 
get through, and you will now. I shall not 
worry, and neither will you. I know it looks 
dark to you, but it will be brighter when you 
reach Keyport and get all the facts. I will 
come up myself on the early morning train, and 
see what can be done for the men.” 


CHAPTER VII 


Betty’s first patient 

The wounded men lay in an empty warehouse 
which in the whaling-days had been used for 
the storing of oil, and was now owned by an 
old whaler living back of the village. 

Captain Joe had not waited for permission 
and a key when the accident occurred and the 
wounded men day about him. He and Captain 
Brandt had broken the locks with a crowbar, 
improvised an operating-table for the doctors 
out of old barrels and planks, and dispatched 
messengers up and down the shore to pull mat- 
tresses from the nearest beds. 

The room he had selected for the temporary 
hospital was on the ground floor of the building. 
It was lighted by four big windows, and pro- 
tected by solid wooden shutters, now slightly 
ajar. Through these openings timid rays of 
sunlight, strangers here for years, stole down 
slanting ladders of floating dust to the grimy 
floor, where they lay trembling, with eyes alert, 
ready for instant retreat. From the overhead 
beams hung long strings of abandoned cobwebs 
encrusted with black soot, which the bolder 


104 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

breeze from the open door and windows swayed 
back and forth, the startled soot falling upon 
the white cots below. In one corner was a 
heap of rusty hoops and mouldy staves, — un- 
buried skeletons of old whaling-days. But for 
the accumulation of years of dust and mould 
the room was well adapted to its present use. 

Lacey’s cot was nearest the door. His head 
was bound with bandages ; only one eye was 
free. He lay on his side, breathing heavily. 
The young rigger had been blown against the 
shrouds, and the iron foot-rest had laid open his 
cheek and forehead. The doctor said that if 
he recovered he would carry the scar the rest 
of his life. It was feared, too, that he had been 
injured internally. 

Next to his cot were those of two of the 
sloop's crew, — one man with ribs and ankle 
broken, the other with dislocated hip. Lonny 
Bowles, the quarryman, came next. He was 
sitting up in. bed, his arm in a sling, — Captain 
Brandt was beside him ; he had escaped with a 
gash in his arm. 

Captain Joe was without coat or waistcoat. 
His sleeves were rolled up above the elbows, 
his big brawny arms black with dirt. He had 
been up all night ; now bending over one of 
the crew, lifting him in his arms as if he had 
been a baby, to ease the pain of his position, 
now helping Aunty Bell with the beds. 

Betty sat beside Lacey, fanning him. Her 


BETTY’S FIRST PATIENT 


105 


eyes were red and heavy, her pretty curls 
matted about her head. She and Aunty Bell 
had not had their clothes off. Their faces were 
smudged with the soot and grime that kept fall- 
ing from the ceiling. Aunty Bell had taken 
charge of the improvised stove, heating the 
water, and Betty had assisted the doctors — 
there were two — with the bandages and lint. 

“ It ain’t as bad as I thought when I wired 
ye,” said Captain Joe to Sanford, stopping him 
as he edged a way through the group of men 
outside. “ It ’s turrible hard on th’ poor mate, 
jes’ been married. Never died till he reached 
th’ dock. There warn’t a square inch o’ flesh 
onto him, the doctor said, that warn’t scalded 
clean off. Poor feller,” and his voice broke, 
“ he ain’t been married but three months ; she ’s 
a-comin’ down on the express. Telling her’s 
the wust thing we ’ve got to do to-day. Cap’n 
Bob ’s goin’ ter meet ’er. The other boys is 
tore up some,” he went on, “ but we ’ll have ’em 
crawlin’ ’round in a week or so. Lacey ’s got 
th’ worst crack. Doctor sez he kin save his 
eye if he pulls through, but ye kin lay yer three 
fingers in th’ hole in his face. He won’t be as 
purty as he was,” with an effort at a smile, “ but 
maybe that ’ll do him good.” 

Sanford crossed at once to Lacey’s bed, and 
laid his hand tenderly on that of the sufferer. 
The young fellow opened his well eye, and a 
smile played for an instant about his mouth, 


io6 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

the white teeth gleaming. Then it faded with 
the pain. Betty bent over him still closer and 
adjusted the covering about his chest. 

‘‘Has he suffered much during the night, 
Betty ? ” asked Sanford. 

“He didn’t know a thing at first, sir. He 
did n’t come to himself till the doctor got 
through. He’s been easier since daylight.” 
Then, with her head turned toward Sanford, 
and with a significant gesture, pointing to her 
own forehead and cheek, she noiselessly de- 
scribed the terrible wounds, burying her face 
in her hands as the awful memory rose before 
her. “ Oh, Mr. Sanford, I never dreamed any- 
body could suffer so.” 

“Where does he suffer most.?” asked San- 
ford in a whisper. 

Lacey opened his eye. “In my back, Mr. 
Sanford.” 

Betty laid her fingers on his hand. “ Don’t 
talk, Billy; doctor said ye weren’t to talk.” 

The eye shut again wearily, and the brown, 
rough, scarred hand with the blue tattoo marks 
under the skin closed over the little fingers and 
held on. 

Betty sat fanning him gently, looking down 
upon his bruised face. As each successive 
pain racked his helpless body she would hold 
her breath until it passed, tightening her fin- 
gers that he might steady himself the better : 
all her heart went out to him in his pain. 


BETTY’S FIRST PATIENT 107 

Aunty Bell watched her for a moment ; then 
going to her side, she drew her hand with a 
caressing stroke under the girl’s chin, a favorite 
love-touch of hers, and said : — 

Cap’ll says we got to go home, child, both 
of us. You’re tuckered out, an’ I got some 
chores to do. We can’t do no more good here. 
You come ’long an’ get washed up ’fore Caleb 
comes. You don’t want to let him see ye 
bunged up like this, an’ all smudged and dirty 
with th’ soot a-droppin’ down. He’ll be here 
in half an hour. They ’ve sent the tug to the 
Ledge for him an’ the men. Come, Betty, 
that ’s a good child.” 

I ain’t a-goin’ a step, Aunty Bell. I ain’t 
sleepy a bit. There ain’t nobody to change 
these cloths but me. Caleb knows how to get 
along,” she answered, her eyes watching the 
quick, labored breathing of the injured man. 

The mention of Caleb’s name brought her 
back to herself. Since the jnoment when she 
had left her cottage, the night before, and in 
all her varying moods since, she had not once 
thought of her husband. At the sound of the 
explosion she had run out of her house bare- 
headed, and had kept on down the road, over- 
taking Mrs. Bell and the neighbors. She had 
not stopped even to lock her door. She only 
knew that the men were hurt, and that she had 
seen Captain Joe and the others working on 
the sloop’s deck but an hour before. She still 


io8 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

saw Lacey’s ghastly face as the lantern’s light 
fell upon it, and his limp body carried on the 
barrow plank and laid outside the warehouse 
door, and could still hear the crash of Captain 
Joe’s iron bar when he forced off the lock. 
She would not leave the sufferer, now that he 
had crawled back to life and needed her, — not, 
at least, until he was out of all danger. When 
Captain Joe passed a few minutes later with a 
cup of coffee for one of the sufferers, she 
was still by Lacey’s side, fanning gently. He 
seemed to be asleep. 

“ Now, little gal,” the captain called out, 
“you git along home. You done fust-rate, an’ 
the men won’t forgit ye for it. Caleb ’ll be 
mighty proud when I tell ’im how you stood by 
las’ night when they all piled in on top o’ me. 
You run ’long now after Aunty Bell, an’ git 
some sleep. I ’m goin’ ’board the sloop to see 
how badly she’s hurted.” 

Betty only shook her head. Then she rested 
her face against Captain Joe’s strong arm and 
said, “No, please don’t, Captain Joe. I can’t 
go now.” 

She was still there, the fan moving noise- 
lessly, when Mrs. Leroy, her maid, and Major 
Slocomb entered the hospital. The major had 
escorted Mrs. Leroy from New York, greatly 
to Sanford’s surprise, and greatly to Mrs. 
Leroy’s visible annoyance. All her protests 
the night before had only confirmed him in his 


BETTY’S FIRST PATIENT 


109 

determination to meet her at the train in the 
morning. 

“ Did you suppose, my dear suh,” he said, 
in answer to Sanford’s astonished look, as he 
handed that dainty woman from the train on 
its arrival at Keyport, “that I would permit a 
lady to come off alone into a God -forsaken 
country like this, that raises nothin’ but rocks 
and scrub pines ? ” 

Mrs. Leroy seemed stunned when she saw 
the four cots upon which the men lay. She 
advanced a step toward Lacey’s bed, and then, 
as she caught sight of the bandages and the 
ghastly face upon the blood-stained pillow, she 
stopped short and grasped Sanford’s arm, and 
said in a tremulous whisper, “ Oh, Henry, is 
that his poor wife sitting by him .? ” 

“No; that’s the wife of Caleb West, the 
master diver. That ’s Lacey lying there. He 
looks to be worse hurt than he is, Kate,” anx- 
ious to make the case as light as possible. 

Her eyes wandered over the room, up at 
the cobwebbed ceiling and down to the black- 
ened floor. 

“What an awfully dirty place! Are you 
going to keep them here ? ” 

“Yes, until they can get to work again. 
The building is perfectly dry and healthy, 
with plenty of ventilation. We wiU have it 
cleaned up, — it needs that.” 

Betty merely glanced at the group as she 


no CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

sat fanning the sleeping man. Their entrance 
had made but little impression upon her ; she 
was too tired to move, and too much absorbed 
in her charge to offer the fine lady a chair. 

Something in the girl’s face touched the 
visitor. 

“ Have you been here all the morning ? ” 
she asked, crossing to Betty’s side of the cot, 
and laying a hand on her shoulder. With the 
passing of the first shock the natural tender- 
ness of her heart had overcome her. She 
wanted to help. 

Betty raised her eyes, the rims red with her 
long vigil, and the whites all the whiter because 
of the fine black dust that had sifted down and 
discolored her pale cheeks. 

“ I ’ve been here all night, ma’am,” she said 
sweetly and gently, drawn instinctively by Mrs. 
Leroy’s sympathetic face. 

How tired you must be ! Can I do any- 
thing to help you ? Let me fan him while you 
rest a little.” 

Betty shook her head. 

The major crossed over to the cot occupied 
by Lonny Bowles, the big Noank quarryman, 
whose arm was in a sling, and sat down on the 
edge of the bed. No one had yet thought of 
bringing in chairs, except for those nursing the 
wounded. As the Pocomokian looked into 
Bowles’s bronzed, ruddy face, at the wrinkles 
about his neck, as seamy as those of a young 


BETTY’S FIRST PATIENT iii 

bull, the great broad hairy chest, and the arms 
and hands big and strong, he was filled with 
astonishment. Everything about the quarry- 
man seemed to be the exact opposite of what 
he himself possessed. This almost racial dis- 
tinction was made clearer when, in the kind- 
ness of his heart, he tried to comfort the unfor- 
tunate man. 

“I’m ve’y sorry,” the major began, with 
an embarrassment entirely new to him, and 
which he could not account for in himself, “at 
finding you injured in this way, suh. Has the 
night been a ve’y painful one.^ You seem 
better off than the others. How did you feel 
at the time ? ” 

Bowles looked him all over with a curious 
expression of countenance. He was trying to 
decide in his mind, from the major’s white tie, 
whether he was a minister, whose next remark 
would be a request to kneel down and pray 
with him, or whether he were a quack doctor 
who had come to do a little business on his 
own account. The evident sincerity and ten- 
derness of the speaker disconcerted him for 
the moment. He hesitated for a while, and 
finally formulated a reply in his mind that 
would cover the case if his first surmise as to 
his being a minister were correct, and might at 
the same time result in his being let alone if 
the second proved to be the case. 

“ Wall, it was so damn sudden. Fust thing 


1 12 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

I knowed I wuz in the water with th’ wind 
knocked out’er me, an’ the next wuz when I 
come to an’ they hed me in here an’ the doctor 
a-fixin’ me up. I ’m all right, ye see, only I ’m 
drier ’n a lime-kiln. Say, cap,” — he looked 
over toward the water-bucket, and called to one 
of the men standing near the door, — ‘‘ fetch 
me a dipper.” 

To call a landsman ‘^cap” around Keyport 
is to dignify him with a title which he probably 
does not possess, but which you think would 
please him if he did. 

“ Let me get you a drink,” said the major, 
rising from the bed with a quick spring indica- 
tive of his hearty desire to serve him. He 
dipped the floating tin in the bucket and 
brought it to the thirsty man. 

Bowles drained the contents to its last drop. 
‘‘He ain’t no preach an’ he ain’t no sawbones,” 
he said to himself, as he returned the empty 
tin to Slocomb with a “ Thank ye, — much 
obleeged.” 

Somehow the reply satisfied the major far 
more than the most elaborately prepared speech 
of thanks which he remembered ever to have 
received. 

Then the two men continued to talk freely 
with each other, the one act of kindness hav- 
ing broken down the barrier between them. 
The Pocomokian, completely forgetting himself, 
told of his home on the Chesapeake, of his 


BETTY’S FIRST PATIENT 113 

acquaintance with Sanford, of his coming up 
to look after Mrs. Leroy. The major’s tone 
of voice was as natural and commonplace as 
if he had been conversing with himself alone. 
“ Could n’t leave a woman without protection, 
you know,” to which code of etiquette Bowles 
bobbed his head in reply; the genuine, unaf- 
fected sympathy of the rough man before him 
seemed to have knocked every fictitious prop 
from under his own personality. 

The quarryman, in turn, talked about the 
Ledge, and what a rotten season it had been, 
— nothing but southeasters since work opened ; 
last week the men only got three days’ work. 
It was terrible rough on the boss (the boss was 
Sanford), paying out wages to the men and get- 
ting so little back ; but it was n’t the men’s 
fault, — they were standing by day and night, 
catching the lulls when they came; they’d 
make it up before the season was over ; he and 
Caleb West had been up all the night before 
getting ready for the big derricks that Captain 
Joe was going to set up as soon as they were 
ready ; did n’t know what they were going to 
do now with that Screamer all tore up : a rec- 
ord of danger, unselfishness, loyalty, pluck, hard 
work, and a sense of duty that was a complete 
revelation to Slocomb, whose whole life had 
been one prolonged loaf, and whose ideas of 
the higher type of man had heretofore been 
somehow inseparably interwoven with a veranda, 


1 14 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

a splint-bottomed chair, a palm-leaf fan, and 
somebody within call to administer to his per- 
sonal wants. 

When Captain Joe returned from an inspec- 
tion of the sloop’s injuries, — strange to say, 
they were very slight compared to the force of 
the explosion, — Mrs. Leroy was still talking 
to Sanford, suggesting comforts for the men, 
and planning for mosquito nettings to be placed 
over their cots. The maid, a severe-looking 
woman in black, who had never relaxed her 
grasp of the dressing-case, had taken a seat on 
an empty nail-keg which somebody had brought 
in, and which she had carefully dusted with her 
handkerchief before occupying. It was evident 
from her manner that there was absolutely 
nothing she could do for anybody. 

Captain Joe looked at the party for a moment, 
noted Mrs. Leroy’s traveling costume of blue 
foulard and dainty bonnet, ran his eye over the 
maid, glanced at the major, in an alpaca coat, 
with white waistcoat and necktie and gray 
slouch hat, and said in his calm, forceful, yet 
gentle way to Mrs. Leroy, “ It was very nice 
of ye to come an’ bring yer friend,” pointing to 
the maid, “an’ any o’ Mr. Sanford’s folks is 
allers welcome at any time ; but we be a rough 
lot, an’ the men ’s rough, and ye kin see for yer- 
self we ain’t fixed up fur company. They ’ll be 
all right in a week or so. Ef ye don’t mind now, 
ma’am, I ’m goin’ to shet them shetters to keep 


BETTY’S FIRST PATIENT 115 

the sun out o’ their eyes an’ git th’ men quiet, 
— some on ’em ain’t slep’ any too much. The 
tug ’ll be here to take ye all over to Medford 
whenever ye ’re ready ; she ’s been to th’ Ledge 
fur th’ men. Mr. Sanford said ye ’d be goin’ 
over soon.” He glanced about the'room as he 
spoke, until his eye rested on Sanford. “Ye’re 
goin’ ’long, did n’t I hear ye say, sir.?” Then 
addressing Slocomb, whose title he tried to 
remember, “ We ’ve done th’ best we could, 
colonel. It ain’t like what ye ’re accustomed 
to, mebbe, — kind’er ragged place, — but we 
got th’ men handy here where we kin take care 
on ’em, an’ still look after th’ work, an’ we ain’t 
got no time to lose this season ; it ’s been back- 
’ard, blowin’ a gale half the time. There ’s the 
tug whistle now, ma’am,” turning again to Mrs. 
Leroy. 

Mrs. Leroy did not answer. She felt the 
justice of the captain’s evident want of confi- 
dence in her, and realized at once that all of 
her best impulses could not save her from being 
an intrusion at this time. None of her former 
experience had equipped her for a situation of 
such gravity as this. With a curious feeling of 
half contempt for herself, she thought, as she 
looked around upon the great strong men suf- 
fering there silently, how little she had known 
of what physical pain must be. She had once 
read to a young blind girl in a hospital, during 
a winter, and she had sent delicacies for years 


ii6 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

to a poor man with some affliction of the spine. 
She remembered that she had been quite satis- 
fied with herself and her work at the time ; and 
so had the pretty nurses in their caps, and the 
young doctors whom she met, the head surgeon 
even escorting her to her carriage. But what 
had she done to prepare herself for a situation 
like this.? Here was the reality of suffering, 
and yet with all her sympathy she felt within 
herself a fierce repugnance to it. After all her 
aspirations, how weak she was, and how heartily 
she despised herself ! 

As she turned to leave the building, holding 
her skirts in her hand to avoid the dirt, the 
light of the open door was shut out, and eight 
or ten great strong fellows in rough jackets and 
boots, headed by Caleb West, just landed by a 
tug from the Ledge, walked hurriedly into the 
room, with an air as if they belonged there and 
knew they had work to do, and at once. 

Caleb strode straight to Lacey’s bed. His 
cap was off, his hands were clasped behind his 
back. He felt his eyes filling, and a great lump 
rose in his throat as he stood looking down at 
him. He never could see suffering unmoved. 

The young rigger opened his well eye, and 
the pale cheek flushed scarlet as he saw Caleb’s 
face bending over him. 

“Where did it hit ye, sonny.? ” asked Caleb, 
bending closer, and slipping one hand into 
Betty’s as he spoke. 


BETTY’S FIRST PATIENT 117 

Betty pointed to her own cheek. Lacey, she 
said, was too weak to answer for himself. 

“ I ’ve been afeard o’ that b’iler,” Caleb said, 
turning to one of the men, ever sence I see it 
work.” 

Betty shook her head warningly, holding a 
finger to her lips. Caleb and the men stopped 
talking. 

“You been here all night, Betty whis- 
pered Caleb, putting his mouth close to her 
ear, and one big hand on her rounded shoulder. 

Betty nodded her head. 

“Ye ought’er be mighty proud o’ her, Caleb,” 
said Captain Joe, joining the group, and speak- 
ing in a lowered tone. “Ain’t many older 
women ’longshore would’er done any better. I 
tried ter git ’er to go home with Aunty Bell two 
hours ago, but she sez she won’t.” 

Caleb’s face glowed and his heart gave a 
quick bound as he listened to Captain Joe’s 
praise of the girl wife that was all his own. 
His rough hand pressed Betty’s shoulder the 
closer. He had always known that the first 
great sorrow or anxiety that came into her life 
would develop all her nature and make a woman 
of her. Now the men about him would see the 
strong womanly qualities which had attracted 
him. 

“Lemme take hold now, Betty,” said Caleb, 
still whispering, and stooping over her again. 
“Ye’re nigh beat out, little woman.” 


ii8 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

He slipped his arm around her slender waist 
as if to lift her from the chair. Betty caught 
his fingers and loosened his hand from its hold. 

“I’m all right, Caleb. You go home. I’ll 
be ’long in a little while to get supper.” 

Caleb looked at her curiously. Her tone of 
voice was new to him. She had never loosened 
his arm before, not when she was tired and sick. 
She had always crept into his lap, and put her 
pretty white arms around his neck, and tucked 
her head down on his big beard. 

“What’s the matter, little one.^” he asked 
anxiously. “ Maybe it ’s hungry ye be ” 

“ Yes, I guess I ’m hungry, Caleb,” said Betty 
wearily. 

“ I ’ll go out, Betty, an’ git ye some soup 
or somethin’. I ’ll be back right away, little 
woman.” He tiptoed past the cot, putting on 
his cap as he went. 

Two of the men followed him with their eyes 
and smiled. One looked significantly at Lacey 
and then toward the retreating figure, and shook 
his head in a knowing way. 

Betty had not answered Caleb. She did not 
even turn her head to follow his movements. 
She saw only the bruised, pale face before her 
as she listened to the heavy breathing of the 
sufferer. She would have dropped from her 
chair with fatigue and exhaustion but for some 
new spirit within her which seemed to hold her 
up, and to keep the fan still in her hand. 


BETTY’S FIRST PATIENT 119 

When Sanford, after escorting Mrs. Leroy to 
her home, returned to the improvised hospital, 
he found the lanterns lighted, and learned that 
the doctor had dressed the men’s wounds, and 
had reported everybody on the mend, especially 
Lacey ; at Betty’s urgent request he had made 
a careful examination of the young rigger’s 
wounds, and had pronounced him positively out 
of danger. Only then had she left her post 
and gone to her own cottage with Caleb. 

Captain Joe had followed Aunty Bell home 
for a few hours’ rest, and all the watchers had 
been changed. 

There was but one exception. Beside the 
cot upon which lay the sailor with the dislo- 
cated hip sat the major, with hat and coat off, 
his shirt-cuffs rolled up. He was feeding the 
sufferer from a bowl of soup which he held in 
his hand. He seemed to enjoy every phase of 
his new experience. It might have been that 
his sympathies were more than usually aroused, 
or it might have been that the spirit of vaga- 
bondage within him, which fitted him for every 
condition in life, making him equally at home 
among rich and poor, and equally agreeable to 
both, had speedily brought him into harmony 
with the men about him. Certainly no newly 
appointed young surgeon in a charity hospital 
could have been more entirely absorbed in the 
proper running of the establishment than was 
Slocomb in the care of these rough men. He 


120 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

had refused point-blank Mrs. Leroy’s pressing 
invitation to spend the night at her house, his 
refusal causing much astonishment to those 
who misunderstood his reasons. 

“ I ’m going to take charge here to-night, 
major,” said Sanford, walking toward him, real- 
izing for the first time that he had neglected 
his friend all day, and with a sudden anxiety as 
to where he should , send him for the night. 
“ Will you go to the hotel and get a room, or 
will you go to Captain Joe’s cottage ? You can 
have my bed. Mrs. Bell will make you very 
comfortable for the night.” 

The major turned to Sanford with an expres- 
sion of profound sympathy in his face, hesitated 
for a moment, and said firmly, with a slight 
suggestion of wounded dignity in his manner, 
and in a voice which was sincerity itself, “ By 
gravy, suh, you would n’t talk about going to 
bed if you ’d been yere ’most all day, as I 
have, and seen what these po’ men suffer. 
My place is yere, suh, an’ yere I ’m going to 
stay.” 

Sanford had to look twice before he could 
trust his own eyes and ears. What was the 
matter with the Pocomokian ? 

“But, major,” he continued in protest, deter- 
mining finally in his mind that some quixotic 
whim had taken possession of him, “there isn’t 
a place for you to lie down. You had better get 
a good night’s rest, and come back in the morn- 


BETTY’S FIRST PATIENT 


I2I 


ing. There ’s nothing you can do here. I ’m 
going to sit up with the men myself to-night.” 

The major did not even wait for Sanford’s 
reply. He placed the hot soup carefully on the 
floor, slipped one hand under the wounded man’s 
head that he might swallow more easily, and 
then raised another spoonful to the sufferer’s 
lips. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE “ HEAVE HO ” OF LONNY BOWLES 

The accident to the Screamer had delayed 
work at the Ledge but a few days. Other 
men had taken the place of those injured, and 
renewed efforts had been made by Sanford and 
Captain Joe to complete to low- water mark the 
huge concrete disk, forming a bedstone sixty 
feet in diameter and twelve feet thick, on which 
the superstructure was to rest. This had been 
accomplished after three weeks of work, and 
the men stood in readiness to begin the ma- 
sonry of the superstructure itself so soon as the 
four great derricks required in lifting and set- 
ting the cut stone of the masonry could be 
erected. They were only waiting for Mr. 
Carleton’s acceptance of the concrete disk, the 
first section of the contract. The superin- 
tendent’s certificate of approval was important, 
one rule of the Department being that no new 
section of the work should begin until the pre- 
ceding .section was officially approved. 

Carleton, however, declined to give it. His 
ostensible reason was that the engineer-in-chief 
was expected daily at Keyport, and should 


“HEAVE HO” OF LONNY BOWLES 123 

therefore pass upon the work himself. His real 
reason was a desire to settle a score with Cap- 
tain Joe by impeding the progress of the work. 

This animosity to Captain Joe had been 
aroused by an article very flattering to the su- 
perintendent, published in the “Medford Jour- 
nal,” in which great credit had been given to 
Carleton for his “ heroism and his prompt effi- 
ciency in providing a hospital for the wounded 
men.” The day after its publication, the 
“ Noank Times,” a political rival, sent to make 
an investigation of its own, in the course of 
which the reporter encountered Captain Joe. 
The captain had not seen the Medford article 
until it was shown him by the reporter. He 
thereupon gave the exact facts in regard to 
the accident and the subsequent care of the 
wounded men, generously exonerating the gov- 
ernment superintendent from all responsibility 
for the notice ; adding with decided emphasis 
that “Mr. Carleton couldn’t ’a’ said no such 
thing ’bout havin’ provided the hospital himself, 
’cause he was over to Medford to a circus the 
night the accident happened, and did n’t git 
home till daylight next mornin’, when every- 
thing was over an’ the men was in their beds.” 
The result of this interview was a double-leaded 
column in the next issue of the “ Noank Times,” 
which not only ridiculed its rival for the manu- 
factured news, but read a lesson on veracity to 
Carleton himself. 


124 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

The denial made by the “Times” was the 
thrust that had rankled deepest ; for Carleton, 
unfortunately for himself, had inclosed the 
eulogistic article from the “ Medford Journal” 
in his official report of the accident to the De- 
partment, and had become the proud possessor 
of a letter from the engineer-in-chief commend- 
ing his “promptness and efficiency.” 

So far the captain had kept his temper, ig- 
noring both the obstacles Carleton had thrown 
in his way and the ill-natured speeches the su- 
perintendent was constantly making. No open 
rupture had taken place. Those, however, who 
knew the captain’s explosive temperament con- 
fidently expected that he would break out upon 
the superintendent, in answer to some brutal 
thrust, in a dialect so impregnated with ful- 
minates that the effect on Carleton would be 
disastrous. But they were never gratified. 
“’T ain’t no use answerin’ back,” was all he 
said. “ He don’t know no better, poor critter.” 

Indeed, it was only when a great personal 
danger threatened his men that the captain’s 
every-day, conventional English seemed inade- 
quate. On such occasions, when the slightest 
error on the part of his working force might 
result in the instant death or the maiming of 
one of them, certain and it is to be hoped unre- 
corded outbursts of profanity, soaring into cres 
cendos and ending in fortissimos, would often 
escape from the captain’s lips with a vim and 


‘‘HEAVE HO” OF LONNY BOWLES 125 

rush that would have raised the hair of his 
Puritan ancestors, — rockets of oaths, that 
kindled with splutters of dissatisfaction, flamed 
into showers of abuse, and burst into blas- 
phemies which cleared the atmosphere like 
a thunderclap. For these transgressions he 
never made any apology. In the roar of the 
sea they seemed sometimes the only ammuni- 
tion he could depend upon. “ Somebody ’ll git 
hurted round here, if ye ain’t careful ; somehow 
I can’t make ye understand no other way,” he 
would say. This was as near as he ever came 
to apologizing for his sinfulness. But he never 
wasted any of these explosives on such men as 
Carleton. 

As the superintendent persisted in his re- 
fusal to give the certificate of acceptance, and 
as each day was precious, Sanford, whose con- 
fidence in the stability and correctness of the 
work which he and Captain Joe had done was 
unshaken, determined to begin the erection 
of the four derricks at once. He accordingly 
gave orders to clear away the mixing-boards 
and tools ; thus burning his bridges behind him, 
should the inspection of the engineer-in-chief 
necessitate any additional work on the concrete 
disk. 

These derricks, with their winches and chain 
guys, were now lying on the jagged rocks of 
the Ledge, where they had been landed the 
day before by Captain Brandt with the boom 


126 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


of the Screamer, — now stanch and sound as 
ever, a new engine and boiler on her deck. 
They were designed to lift and set the cut- 
stone masonry of the superstructure, — the top 
course at a height of fifty-eight feet above the 
water-line. These stones weighed from six to 
thirteen tons each. 

During the delay that followed the accident 
the weather had been unsually fine. Day after 
day the sun had risen on a sea of silver reflect- 
ing the blue of a cloudless sky, with wavy tide- 
lines engraved on its polished surface. At 
dawn Crotch Island had been an emerald, and 
at sunset an amethyst. 

With the beginning of the dog-days, however, 
the weather had changed. Dull leaden fog- 
banks dimming the distant horizon had blended 
into a pearly-white sky. Restless, wandering 
winds sulked in dead calms, or broke in fitful, 
peevish blasts. Opal-tinted clouds showed at 
sunrise, and prismatic rings of light surrounded 
the moon, — all sure signs of a coming storm. 

Captain Joe watched the changing sky where 
hour by hour were placarded the bulletins of 
the impending outbreak, and redoubled his ef- 
forts on the lines of the watch-tackles at which 
the men were tugging, pulling the derricks to 
their places. 

By ten o’clock on the 15 th of August, three 
of the four derricks, their tops connected by 
heavy wire rope, had been stepped in their 


“HEAVE HO” OF LONNY BOWLES 127 

sockets and raised erect, and their seaward 
guys had been made fast, Caleb securing the 
ends himself. By noon, the last derrick — the 
fourth leg of the chair, as it were — was also 
nearly perpendicular, the men tugging ten deep 
on the line of the watch-tackles. This derrick, 
being the last of the whole system and the 
most difficult to handle, was under the imme- 
diate charge of Captain Joe. On account of 
its position, which necessitated the bearing of its 
own strain and that of the other three derricks 
as well, its outboard seaward guy was as heavy 
as that of a ship’s anchor-chain. The final 
drawing taut of this chain, some sixty feet in 
length, stretching, as did the smaller ones, 
from the top of the derrick-mast down to the 
enrockment block, and the fastening of its sea 
end in the block, would not only complete the 
system of the four erected derricks, but would 
make them permanent and strong enough to 
resist either sea action or any weight that they 
might be required to lift. The failure to secure 
this chain guy into the anchoring enrockment 
block, or any sudden break in the other guys, 
would result not only in instantly toppling over 
the fourth derrick itself, but in dragging the 
three erect derricks with it. This might mean, 
too, the crushing to death of some of the men ; 
for the slimy, ooze-covered rocks and concrete 
disk on which they had to stand and work made 
hurried escape impossible. 


128 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

To insure an easier connection between this 
last chain and the enrockment block, Caleb had 
fastened below water, into the Lewis hole of 
the block, a long iron hook. Captain Joe’s 
problem, which he was now about to solve, was 
to catch this hook into a steel ring which was 
attached to the end of the chain guy. The 
drawing together of this hook and ring was to be 
done by means of a watch-tackle, which tight- 
ened the chain guy inch by inch, the gang of 
men standing in line while Captain Joe, ring in 
hand, waited to slip it into the hook. A stage 
manager stretching a tight-rope supported on 
saw-horses, with a similar tackle, solves, on a 
smaller scale, just such a problem every night. 

Carleton, who never ran any personal risks, 
sat on the platform, out of harm’s way, sneering 
at the men’s struggles, and protesting that it 
was impossible to put up the four derricks at 
once. Sanford was across the disk, some fifty 
feet from Captain Joe, studying the effect of the 
increased strain on the outboard guys of the 
three derricks already placed. 

The steady rhythmic movement of the men, 
ankle-deep in the water, swaying in unison, close- 
stepped, tugging at the tackle-line, like a file of 
soldiers, keeping time to Lonny Bowles’s “Heave 
ho,” had brought the hook and ring within six 
feet of each other, when the foot of one of the 
men slipped on the slimy ooze and tripped up 
the man next him. In an instant the whole 


“HEAVE HO” OF LONNY BOWLES 129 

gang were floundering among the rocks and in 
the water, the big fourth derrick swaying un- 
easily, like a tree that was doomed. 

“ Every man o’ ye as ye were ! ” shouted 
Captain Joe, without even a look at the superin- 
tendent, who had laughed outright at their fall. 
While he was shouting .he had twisted a safety- 
line around a projecting rock to hold the strain 
until the men could regain their feet. The 
great derrick tottered for a moment, steadied 
itself like a drunken man, and remained still. 
The other three quivered, their top connecting 
guys sagging loose. 

“Now make fast, an’ two ’r three of ye come 
here ! ” cried the captain again. In the easing 
of the strain caused by the slipping of the men, 
the six feet of space between hook and ring had 
gone back to ten. 

Two men scrambled like huge crabs over the 
slippery rocks, and relieved Captain Joe of the 
end of the safety-line. The others stood firm 
and held taut the tug-lines of the watch-tackle. 
The slow, rhythmic movement of the gang to 
the steady “Heave ho” began again. The 
slack of the tackle was taken up, and the ten 
feet between the hook and the ring were re- 
duced to five. Half an hour more, and the four 
great derricks would be anchored safe against 
any contingency. 

The strain on the whole system became once 
more intense. The seaward guy of the opposite 


130 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

derrick — the one across the concrete disk — 
shook ominously under the enormous tension. 
Loud creaks could be heard as the links of the 
chain untwisted and the derricks turned on their 
rusty pintles. 

Then a sound like a pistol-shot rang out clear 
and sharp. 

Captain Joe heard Sanford’s warning cry, but 
before the men could ease the strain one of the 
seaward guys that fastened the top of its der- 
rick to its enrockment-block anchorage snapped 
with a springing jerk, writhed like a snake in 
the air, and fell in a swirl across the disk of con- 
crete, barely missing the men. 

The gang at the tug-line turned their heads, 
and the bravest of them grew pale. The oppo- 
site derrick, fifty feet away, was held upright 
by but a single safety-rope. If this should 
break, the whole system of four derricks, with 
its tons of chain guys and wire rope, would be 
down upon their heads. 

Carleton ran to the end of the platform, 
ready to leap. Sanford ordered him back. 
Two of the men, in the uncertainty of the mo- 
ment, slackened their hold. A third, a new- 
comer, turned to run towards the concrete, as the 
safer place, when Caleb’s viselike hand grasped 
his shoulder and threw him back in line. 

There was but one chance left, — to steady 
the imperiled derrick with a temporary guy 
strong enough to stand the strain. 


“HEAVE HO” OF LONNY BOWLES 131 

“ Stand by on that watch-tackle, every 

man o’ ye! Don’t one o’ ye move!” 

shouted Captain Joe in a voice that drowned 
all other sounds. 

The men sprang into line and stood together 
in dogged determination. 

“ Take a man, Caleb, as quick ’s God ’ll let 
ye, an’ run a wire guy out on that derrick.” 
The order was given in a low voice that showed 
the gravity of the situation. 

Caleb and Lonny Bowles stepped from the 
line, leaped over the slippery rocks, splashed 
across the concrete disk, now a shallow lake 
with the rising tide, and picked up another 
tackle as they plunged along to where Sanford 
stood, the water over his rubber boots. They 
dragged a new guy towards the imperiled der- 
rick. Lonny Bowles, in his eagerness to catch 
the dangling end of the parted guy, began to 
scale the derrick-mast itself, climbing by the 
foot-rests, when Captain Joe’s crescendo voice 
overhauled him. He knew the danger better 
than Bowles. 

“ Come down out’er that, Lonny ! ” (Gentle 
oaths.) “ Come down, I tell ye ! ” (Oaths cres- 
cendo.) “ Don’t ye know no better ’n to ” — 
(Oaths fortissimo.) “ Do ye want to pull that 
derrick clean over ? ” (Oaths fortissimisso.) 

Bowles slid from the mast just as Sanford’s 
warning cry scattered the men below him. 
There came a sudden jerk; the opposite der- 


132 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

rick trembled, staggered for a moment, and 
swooped through the air towards the men, 
dragging in its fall the two side derricks with all 
their chains and guys. 

Down between the rocks, heads under, every 
man o’ ye ! ” shouted the captain. 

The captain sprang last, crouching up to his 
neck in the sea, his head below the jagged 
points of two rough stones, just as the huge 
fourth derrick, under which he had stood, 
lunged wildly, and with a ringing blow strucic 
a stone within three feet of his head, — the 
great anchor-chain guy twi-sting like a cobra 
over the slimy rocks. 

When all was still, Sanford’s anxious face 
rose cautiously from behind a protecting rock 
near where the first derrick had struck. There 
came a cheer of safety from Caleb and Bowles, 
answered by another from Captain Joe, and 
Sanford and the men crawled out of their 
holes, and clambered upon the rocks, the water 
dripping from their clothing. 

Not a man had been hurt ! 

What did I tell you ^ ” called out Carleton 
sneeringly, more to hide his alarm than any- 
thing else. 

“ That ’s too bad, Mr. Sanford, but we can’t 
help it,” said Captain Joe in his customary 
voice, paying no more attention to Carleton’s 
talk than if it had been the slop of the waves 
at his feet. “All hands, now, on these den 


“HEAVE HO” OF LONNY BOWLES 133 

ricks. We got’er git ’em up, boys, if it takes 
all night.” 

Again the men sprang to his orders, and 
again and again the crescendos of oaths culmi- 
nated in fortissimos of profanity as the risks for 
the men increased. 

For five consecutive hours they worked with- 
out a pause. 

Slowly and surely the whole system, begin- 
ning with the two side derricks, whose guys 
still held their anchorage, was raised upright, 
Sanford still watching the opposite derrick, a 
new outward guy having replaced the broken 
one. 

It was six o’clock when the four derricks 
were again fairly erect. The same gang was 
tugging at the watch-tackle, and the distance 
between the hook and the ring was once more 
reduced to five feet. The hook gained inch by 
inch towards its anchorage. Captain Joe’s eyes 
gleamed with suppressed satisfaction. 

All this time the tide had been rising. Most 
of the rough, above -water rocks were sub- 
merged, and fully three feet of water washed 
over the concrete disk. Only the tops of the 
rough stones where Sanford stood, and the plat- 
form where Carleton sat, out of all danger from 
derricks or sea, were clear of the incoming 
wash. 

Meanwhile the Screamer’s life -boat — the 
only means the men had that day of leaving 


134 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

the Ledge and boarding the sloop, moored in 
the lee of the Ledge — had broken from her 
moorings, and lay dangerously near the rocks. 
The wind too had changed to the east. With 
it came a long, rolling swell that broke on the 
eastern derrick, — the fourth one, the key-note 
of the system, the one Captain Joe and the 
men were tightening up. 

Suddenly a window was opened somewhere 
in the heavens, and a blast of wet air heaped 
the sea into white caps, and sent it bowling 
along towards the Ledge and the Screamer 
lying in the eddy. 

Captain Joe, as he stood with the hook in his 
hand, watched the sea’s carefully planned at- 
tack, and calculated how many minutes were 
left before it would smother the Ledge in a 
froth and end all work. He could see, too, the 
Screamer’s mast rocking ominously in the ris- 
ing sea. If the wind and tide increased, she 
must soon shift her position to the eddy on 
the other side of the Ledge. But no shade of 
anxiety betrayed him. 

The steady movement of the tugging men 
continued, Lonny’s “Heave ho” ringing out 
cheerily in perfect time. Four of the gang, for 
better foothold, stood on the concrete, their 
feet braced to the iron mould band, the water 
up to their pockets. The others clung with 
their feet to the slippery rocks. 

The hook was now within two feet of the 


“HEAVE HO” OF LONNY BOWLES 135 

steel ring, Captain Joe standing on a rock 
at a lower level than the others, nearly waist- 
deep in the sea, getting ready for the final 
clinch. 

Sanford from his rock had also been watch- 
ing the sea. As he scanned the horizon, his 
quick eye caught to the eastward a huge roller 
pushed ahead of the increasing wind, piling 
higher as it swept on. 

“Look out for that sea. Captain Joe! Hold 
fast, men, — hold fast!” he shouted, springing 
to a higher rock. 

Hardly had his voice ceased, when a huge 
green curler threw itself headlong on the Ledge, 
wetting the men to their arm-pits. Captain Joe 
had raised his eyes for an instant, grasped the 
chain as a brace, and taken its full force on his 
broad back. When his head emerged, his cap 
was gone, his shirt clung to the muscles of his 
big chest, and the water streamed from his hair 
and mouth. 

Shaking his head like a big water-dog, he 
waved his hand, with a laugh, to Sanford, vol- 
leyed out another rattling fire of orders, and 
then held on with the clutch of a devil-fish as 
the next green roller raced over him. It made 
no more impression upon him than if he had 
been an offshore buoy. 

The fight now lay between the rising sea and 
the men tugging at the watch-tackle. After 
each wave ran by the men gained an inch on 


136 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

the tightening line. Every moment the wind 
blew harder, and every moment the sea rose 
higher. Bowles was twice washed from the 
rock on which he stood, and the newcomer, 
who was unused to the slime and ooze, had 
been thrown bodily into a water-hole. Sanford 
held to a rock a few feet above Captain Joe, 
watching his every movement. His anxiety 
for the safe erection of the system had been 
forgotten in his admiration for the superb pluck 
and masterful skill of the surf-drenched sea- 
titan below him. 

Captain Joe now moved to the edge of the 
anchor enrockment block, standing waist-deep 
in the sea, one hand holding the hook, the other 
the ring. Six inches more and the closure would 
be complete. 

In heavy strains like these the last six inches 
gain slowly. 

“Give it to ’er, men — all hands now — give 

it to ’er ! Pull, Caleb ! Pull, you ! ” 

(Air full of Greek fire.) “ Once more — all 

together !” (Sky-bombs bursting.) 

“ All to— ” 

Again the sea buried him out of sight, 
quenching the explosives struggling to escape 
from his throat. 

The wind and tide increased. The water 
swirled about the men, the spray flew over 
their heads, but the steady pull went on. 

A voice from the platform now called out, — 


“HEAVE HO” OF LONNY BOWLES 137 

it was that of Nickles, the cook : “ life-boat ’s 
a-poundin’ bad, sir! She can’t stan’ it much 
longer.” 

Carleton’s voice shouting to Sanford from 
the platform came next : “I’m not going to 
stay here all night and get wet. I ’m going to 
Keyport in the Screamer. Send some men 
to catch this life-boat.” 

The captain raised his head and looked at 
Nickles ; Carleton he never saw. 

“ Let ’r pound an’ be damned to ’er ! Go on, 
Caleb, with that tackle. Pull, ye ” — Another 
wave went over him, and another red-hot explo- 
sive lost its life. 

With the breaking of the next roller the cap- 
tain uttered no sound. The situation was too 
grave for explosives. Whenever his profanity 
stopped short the men grew nervous : they 
knew then that a crisis had arrived, one that 
even Captain Joe feared. 

The captain bent over the chain, one arm 
clinging to the anchorage, his feet braced 
against a rock, the hook in his hand within 
an inch of the ring. 

Hold hard he shouted. 

Caleb raised his hand in warning, and the 
rhythmic movement ceased. The men stood 
still. Every eye was fixed on the captain. 

“ LET GO ! ” 

The big derrick quivered for an instant as 
the line slackened, stood still, and a slight 


138 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

shiver ran through the guys. The hook had 
slipped into the ring ! 

The system of four derricks, with all their 
guys and chains, stood as taut and firm as a 
suspension bridge ! 

Captain Joe turned his head calmly towards 
the platform, and said quietly, “ There, Mr. 
Carleton, they’ll stand now till hell freezes 
over.” 

As the cheering of the men subsided, the 
captain, squeezing the water from his hair and 
beard with a quick rasp of his fingers, sprang 
to Sanford’s rock, grasped his outstretched 
hand, shook it heartily, and called to Caleb, in 
a firm, cheery voice that had not a trace of 
fatigue in it after twelve hours of battling with 
sea and derricks, “ All o’ you men what ’s goin’ 
in the Screamer with Mr. Carleton to Keyport 
for Sunday ’d better look out for that life-boat. 
Come, Lonny Bowles, pick up them tackles an’ 
git to the shanty. It ’ll be awful soapy round 
here ’fore mornin’.” 


CHAPTER IX 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 

Caleb sat on the deck of the Screamer on 
her homeward run, his face turned toward Key- 
port Light, beyond which his little cabin lay. 
His eyes glistened, and there came a choking 
in his throat as he thought of meeting Betty. 
He could even feel her hand slipped into his, 
and could hear the very tones of her cheery wel- 
come, when she met him at the gate and they 
walked together up the garden path to the porch. 

Most of the men who had stood to the watch- 
tackles in the rolling surf sat beside him on the 
sloop. Those who were still wet, including 
Sanford, had gone below into the cabin, out of 
the cutting wind. Those who, like Caleb, had 
changed their clothes, sat on the after deck. 
Captain Joe, against Sanford’s earnest protest, 
had remained on the Ledge for the night. He 
wanted, he said, to see how the derricks would 
stand the coming storm. 

It had been a busy month for the diver. 
Since the explosion he had been almost con- 
stantly in his rubber dress, working not only 
his regular four hours under water, — all that 


140 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

an ordinary man could stand, — but taking 
another’s place for an hour or two when some 
piece of submarine work at the Ledge required 
his more skillful eye and hand. He had set 
some fifty or more of the big enrockment blocks 
in thirty feet of water, each block being lowered 
into position by the Screamer’s boom, and he 
had prepared the anchor sockets in which to 
step the four great derricks. Twice he had 
been swept from his hold by the racing current, 
and once his helmet had struck a projecting 
rock with such force that he was deaf for days. 
His hands, too, had begun to blister from the 
salt water and hot sun. Betty, on his last Sun- 
day at home, had split up one of her own little 
gloves for plasters, and tried to heal his blisters 
with some salve. But it had not done hfs 
bruises much good, he thought, as he probed 
with his stub of a thumb the deeper cracks in 
his tough, leathery palms. 

Now that the men were convalescent he glo- 
ried more and more in his wife’s energy and 
capacity. To relieve a wounded man, serve him 
night and day, and by skill, tenderness, and self- 
sacrifice get him once more well and sound and 
on his legs, able to do a day’s work and earn a 
day’s pay, — this, to Caleb, was something to 
be proud of and to glory in. But for her nurs- 
ing, he would often say, poor Billy would now 
be among the tombstones on the hill back of 
Keyport Light. 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 


141 

Caleb’s estimate of Betty’s efforts was not 
exaggerated. Her patient had been the most 
severely injured, and her task had therefore 
been longer and more severe. The cut on La- 
cey’s cheek and frontal bone, dividing his eye- 
brow like a sabre slash, had been deep and ugly 
and slow to heal ; and the bruise on his back 
had developed into a wound that in its progress 
had sapped his youthful strength. He had been 
her patient from the first, and she had never 
neglected him an hour since the fatal night 
when she helped the doctor wind his bandages. 
When on the third day fever set in, she had 
taken her seat by his bedside until the delirium 
had passed. Mrs. Bell and Miss Peebles, the 
schoolmistress, had relieved each other in the 
care of the other wounded men, — all of them, 
strange to say, were single men, and all of them 
away from home. 

Betty would go to her own cabin for an hour 
each day, but as soon as her work was done 
she would pull down the shades, lock the house 
door, and, with a sunbonnet on her head and 
some little delicacy in her hand, hurry down 
the shore road again to the warehouse hospital. 
This had been the first real responsibility of her 
life, the first time in which anything had been 
expected of her apart from the endless cooking 
of three meals a day, and the washing up and 
sweeping out that followed. 

There were no more lonely hours for her now. 


142 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

A new tenderness, too, had been aroused in her 
nature because of the helplessness of the boy 
whose feeble, hot fingers clutched her own. 
The love which this curly-headed young rigger 
had once avowed for her when there were 
strength and ruggedness in every sinew of his 
body, when his red lips were parted over the 
white teeth and his eyes shone with pride, had 
been quite forgotten as she watched by his bed. 
It was this helplessness of his which was ever 
present in her mind, his suffering. She realized 
that the prostrate young fellow before her was 
dependent on her for his very life and suste- 
nance, as a child might have been. It was for 
her he waited in the morning, refusing to touch 
his breakfast until she gave it to him, — unable 
at first, reluctant afterward. It was for her last 
touch on his pillow that he waited at night be- 
fore he went to sleep. It was she alone who 
brought the smiles to his face, or inspired him 
with a courage he had almost lost when the pain 
racked him and he thought he might never be 
able to do a day’s work again. 

The long confinement had left its. mark on 
Lacey. He was a mere outline of himself the 
first day he was able to sit in the sunshine at 
the warehouse door. His hands were white, and 
his face was bleached. When he gained a lit- 
tle strength. Captain Joe gave him light duties 
about the wharf, the doctor refusing to let him 
go to the Ledge. But even after he was walL 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 


143 


ing about, Betty felt him still under her care, 
and prepared dainty dishes for him. When 
she took them to him, she saw, with a strange 
sinking of her heart, that he gained but slowly, 
and was still weak and ill enough to need a 
woman’s care. 

The story of her nursing and of the doctor’s 
constant tribute to her skill was well known, 
' and Caleb, usually so reticent, would talk of it 
again and again. Most of the men liked to 
humor his pride in her, for Betty’s blithesome, 
cheery nature made her a favorite wherever she 
was known. 

“ I kind’er wish Cap’n Joe had come ashore 
to-night,” Caleb said, turning to Captain Brandt, 
who stood beside him, his hand on the tiller. 
“He’s been soakin’ wet all day, an’ he won’t put 
nothin’ dry on ef I ain’t with him. ’T warn’t 
for Betty I ’d ’a’ stayed, but the little gal ’s so 
lonesome ’t ain’t right to leave her. I don’ 
know what Lacey ’d done but for Betty. Did 
ye see ’er, Lonny, when she come in that 
night ? ” All the little by-paths of Caleb’s talk 
led to Betty. 

It was the same old question, but Lonny, 
seated on the other side of the deck, fell in will- 
ingly with Caleb’s mood. 

“ See ’er ? Wall, I guess ! I thought she ’d 
keel over when the doctor washed Billy’s face. 
He did look ragged, an’ no mistake, Caleb ; 
but she held on an’ never give in a mite.” 


144 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Carleton sat close enough to overhear the 
remark. 

“ Why should n’t she ? ” he sneered, behind 
his hand, to the man next him. “Lacey’s a 
blamed sight better looking fellow than what 
she ’s got. The girl knows a good thing when 
she sees it. If it was me, I ’d ” — 

He never finished the sentence. Caleb over- 
heard the remark, and rose from his seat, with 
an expression in his eyes that could not be mis- 
understood. Sanford, watching the group 
through the cabin window, and not knowing 
the cause of Caleb’s sudden anger, said after- 
wards that the diver looked like an old gray 
wolf gathering himself for a spring, as he stood 
over Carleton with hands tightly clinched. 

The superintendent made some sort of half 
apology to Caleb, and the diver took his seat 
again, but did not forgive him ; neither did the 
older men, who had seen Betty grow up, and 
who always spoke of her somehow as if she 
belonged to them. 

“T ain’t decent,” said Lonny Bowles to 
Sanford when he had joined him later in the 
cabin of the Screamer and had repeated Carle- 
ton’s remark, “ for a man to speak agin a 
woman ; such fellers ain’t no better ’n rattle- 
snakes an’ ought’er be trompled on, if they is 
in guv’ment pay.” 

When the sloop reached Keyport harbor, the 
men were landed as near as possible to their 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 


H5 

several homes. Caleb, in his kindly voice, bade 
good-night to Sanford, to Captain Brandt, to the 
crew, and to the working gang. To Carleton 
he said nothing. He would have overlooked 
and forgotten an affront put upon himself, but 
never one upon Betty. 

She ain’t got nobody but an ol’ feller like 
me,” he often said to Captain Joe, — “no chillen 
nor nothin’, poor little gal. I got to make it up 
to her some way.” 

As he walked up the path he was so en- 
grossed with Carleton’s flippant remark, con- 
ning it over in his mind to tell Betty, — he 
knew she did not like him, — that he forgot for 
the moment that she was not at the garden 
gate. 

He looked up at the house and noticed that 
the shades were pulled down on the garden side 
of the house. 

“She ain’t sick, is she.?” he said to himself. 
“ I guess nussin’ Lacey ’s been too much for 
her. I ought’er knowed she’d break down. 
’Pears to me she did look peaked when I bid 
her good-by las’ Monday.” 

“Ye ain’t sick, little woman, be ye.?” he 
called out as he opened the door. 

There was no response. He walked quickly 
through the kitchen, passed into the small hall, 
calling her as he went, mounted the narrow 
stairs, and opened the bedroom door softly, 
thinking she might be asleep. The shutters 


146 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

were closed, the room was in perfect order. 
The bed was empty. The sheet and covering 
were turned neatly on his side, and the bedding 
was clean and had not been slept in. At its 
foot, within reach of his hand, lay his big carpet 
slippers that she had made for him. He stooped 
mechanically, gazing at the untouched pillow, 
still wondering why she had turned the sheet, 
his mind relieved now that she was not ill. 

Then he remembered that it was not yet 
dark, and that, on account of the coming storm, 
he was an hour earlier than usual in getting 
home. His face lightened. He saw it all now : 
Betty had not expected him so soon, and would 
be home in a little while. 

When he entered the kitchen again he saw 
the table. There was but one plate laid, with 
the knife and fork beside it. This was covered 
by a big china bowl. Under it was some cold 
meat with the bread and butter. Near the table, 
by the stove, a freshly ironed shirt hung over a 
chair. 

He understood it all now. She had put his 
supper and his shirt where he would find them, 
and was not coming home till late. He would 
clean up ” right away, so as to be ready for her. 

When he had washed, dressed himself in his 
house clothes, and combed his big beard, he 
dragged a chair out on the front porch, to watch 
for her up and down the road. 

The men going home, carrying their dinner- 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 147 

pails, nodded to him as they passed, and one 
stopped and leaned over the gate long enough 
to wonder whether the big August storm would 
break that night, adding, We generally has a 
blow ’bout this time.” 

While he sat waiting the butcher stopped to 
leave the weekly piece of meat for Sunday, — 
the itinerant country butcher, with his shop in 
one of the neighboring villages, and his custom- 
ers up and down all the roads that led out of 
it ; supplies for every household in his wagon, 
and the gossip of every family on his lips. 

His wagon had sides of canvas painted white, 
with ‘^Fish, Meat and Poultry” in a half-moon 
of black letters arching over the owner’s name, 
and was drawn by a horse that halted and 
moved on, not by the touch of the lines, — 
they were always caught to a hook in the roof 
of the wagon, — but by a word from the butcher, 
who stood at the tail-board, where the scales 
dangled, sorting fish, hacking off pieces of red 
meat, or weighing scraggly chickens propor- 
tionate to the wants and means of his various 
customers. He was busying himself at this 
tail-board, the dripping of the ice pock-marking 
the dusty road below, when he caught sight of 
Caleb. 

“ Wall, I kind’er hoped somebody ’d be hum,” 
he said to himself, wrapping the six-pound roast 
in a piece of yellow paper. With a tuck to his 
blue over-sleeves, he swung open the gate. 


148 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

So ye did n’t go ’long, Caleb, with Mis’ West ? 
I see it begin to blow heavy, and was wond’rin’ 
whether you ’d get in — best cut, you see,” 
opening the paper for Caleb’s inspection, and 
I broke them ribs jes’ ’s Mis’ West allers wants 
’em. Then I wondered agin how ye could leave 
the Ledge at all to-day. Mis’ Bell tol’ me yes- 
terday the cap’n was goin’ to set them derricks. 
I see ’em a-layin’ on the dock ’fore that Cape 
Ann sloop loaded ’em, an’ they was monstrous, 
an’ no mistake. Have some butter.^ She 
did n’t order none this mornin’, but I got some 
come in this forenoon, sweet ’s a nut, — four 
pounds for a dollar, an’ ” — 

Caleb looked at him curiously. “ Where did 
the wife say she was a-goin’ ? ” he interrupted. 

“ Wall, she did n’t say, ’cause I did n’t ketch 
up to her. I was cornin’ down Nollins Hill 
over to Noank, when I see her ahead, walkin’ 
down all in her Sunday rig, carryin’ a little bag 
like. I tho’t maybe she was over to see the 
Nollins folks, till I left seven pounds fresh 
mackerel nex’ door to Stubbins’s, an’ some Del- 
aware eggs. Then I see my stock of ice was 
nigh gone, so I druv down to the steamboat 
dock, an’ there/ 1 catched sight of ’er agin jes’ 
goin’ aboard. I knowed then, of course, she was 
off for Greenport an’ New York, an’ was jes’ 
sayin’ to myself. Wall, I ’ll stop an’ see if any- 
body ’s ter hum, an’ if they ’re all gone I won’t 
leave the meat, but ” — 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 


149 


Put the meat in the kitchen,” said Caleb, 
without rising from his chair. 

When the butcher drove off, the diver had 
not moved. His gaze was fixed on the turn of 
the road. Beads of sweat stood out on his fore- 
head. A faint sickness unnerved him. Had 
he been cross or impatient with her the last 
time he was at home, that she should serve him 
so } Then a surge of anxiety swept over him, as 
he thought of Betty going without letting him 
know. Why should she walk all the way to 
Noank and take the boat across the Sound, 
twenty miles away, if she wanted to go to New 
York ? The railroad station was nearer and the 
fare through was cheaper. He would have 
taken her himself, if he had only known she 
wanted to go. He could have asked Captain 
Joe to give him a couple of days off, and would 
have gone with her. If she had only left some 
message, or sent some word by the men to the 
Ledge! Then, as his thoughts traveled in a 
circle, catching at straws, his brain whirling, his 
eye fell upon the clump of trees shading Cap- 
tain Joe’s cottage. Aunty Bell would know, of 
course ; why had he not thought of that before ? 
Betty told Aunty Bell everything. 

The busy little woman sat on the porch shell- 
ing peas, the pods popping about her bright tin 
pan, as Caleb came up the board walk. 

“Why, ye need n’t hevgive yerself the trouble, 
Caleb, to come all the way down ! ” she called 


150 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

out as he came within hearing. “ Lonny 
Bowles ’s jest been here and told me cap’n ain’t 
cornin’ home till Monday. I ’m ’mazin’ glad 
them derricks is up. He ain’t done nothin’ but 
worrit about ’em since spring opened, ’fraid 
somebody ’d get hurted when he set ’em. .Took 
a lantern, here, night ’fore last, jest as we was 
goin’ to bed, after he ’d been loadin’ ’em aboard 
the Screamer all day, an’ went down to the 
dock to see if Bill Lacey ’d shrunk them collars 
on tight enough. Guess Betty ’s glad yer home. 
I ain’t see her to-day, but I don’t lay it up agin 
her. I knowed she was busy cleanin’ up ’gin ye 
come.” 

Caleb’s heart leaped into his throat. If 
Betty had not told Aunty Bell, there was no 
one else who would know her movements. It 
was on Jiis lips to tell her what the butcher 
had seen, when something in his heart choked 
his utterance. If Betty had not wanted any 
one to know, there was no use of his talking 
about it. 

A man of different temperament, a nervous 
or easily alarmed or suspicious man, would have 
caught at every clue and followed it to the end. 
Caleb waited and kept still. She would tele- 
graph or write him and explain it all, he said to 
himself, or send some one to see him before 
bedtime. So he merely answered he was glad 
Aunty Bell knew about Captain Joe, nodded 
good-night, and passed slowly down the board 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 


51 


walk and up the road, his head on his chest, his 
big beard blowing about his neck in the rising 
wind. He kept saying to himself that Betty 
would telegraph or write and explain it all, or 
send some one to see him before bedtime. 

It was dark when he reached home. He lit 
the kerosene lamp and pulled down the shades. 
He did not want passers-by to know he was 
alone. For an hour or more he strode up and 
down the kitchen, his thumbs in his suspenders, 
his supper untouched. Now and then he would 
stop as if listening for a footfall, or fix his eye 
minutes at a time on some crack in the floor 
or other object, gazing abstractedly at it, his 
thoughts far away. Once he drew the lamp 
close and picked up the evening paper, adjust- 
ing his big glasses ; reading the same lin^s over 
and over, until the paper fell of itself from his 
hands. Soon, worn out with the hard fight of 
the day, he fell asleep in his chair, awaking 
some hours after, his mind torn with anxiety. 
Then he took off his shoes and crept upstairs 
in his stocking feet, holding to the balustrade 
as a tired man will do, entered his bedroom, 
and dropped into a chair. 

All through the night he slept fitfully ; wak- 
ing with sudden starts, roused by the feeling 
that some horrible shadow had settled upon 
him, that something he could not name to him- 
self was standing behind him — always there, 
making him afraid to turn and look. When he 


152 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

was quite awake, and saw the dim outlines of 
the untouched bed with its smooth white pil- 
lows, the undefinable fear would slowly take 
shape, and he would start up in his chair, and 
as if to convince himself he would take a long 
look at the bed, with the relief of one able at 
last to explain a horror the vagueness of which 
had tortured him. “Yes, I know, Betty’s 
gone.” Then, overcome with fatigue, he would 
doze again. 

With the breaking of the day he sprang from 
his chair, half dazed, threw up the narrow sash 
to feel the touch of the cool, real world, and 
peered between the slats of the shutters, lis- 
tening to the wind outside, now blowing a gale 
and dashing against the blinds. 

None of the other houses were open yet. He 
was glad of that, glad of their bare, cold, indif- 
ferent exteriors, blind to the outside world. It 
was as though he felt his secret still safe from 
prying eyes, and he meant to guard it always 
from them ; to let none of them know what his 
night had been, or that Betty had been away 
for so long without telling him. When she 
came home again she would help, he knew, to 
smooth away the marks of it all, the record of 
his pain. Her bright face would look up into 
his, her little hands pat his cheeks, and he 
would then know all about it, why she went and 
where, and he would take the little girl wife in 
his arms, and comfort her in the suffering that 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 


153 


would surely come to her when she discovered 
that her thoughtlessness had caused him any 
misery. 

No ! He would tell no one. He would sim- 
ply wait, all day if necessary, all day and another 
night. He could trust her. It was all right, 
he knew. He did not even mind the waiting. 

Then while he was still thinking, still de- 
termining to keep silent, still satisfying himself 
that all was well, he turned rapidly and tiptoed 
downstairs. 

With nervous, trembling fingers he took a 
suit of tarpaulins and a sou’wester from a hook 
behind the porch door, and walked down to the 
dock. Some early lobstermen, bailing a skiff, 
saw him stand for a moment, look about him, 
and spring aboard a flat-bottomed sharpie, the 
only boat near by, — a good harbor boat, but 
dangerous in rough weather. To their aston- 
ishment, he raised the three-cornered sail and 
headed for the open sea. 

Guess Caleb must be crazy,” said one man, 
resting his scoop for a moment, as he watched 
the boat dip almost bow under. “ Thet sharpie 
ain’t no more fittin’ for thet slop sea ’n ever 
was. What do ye s’pose ails him, anyhow 
Gosh A’mighty ! see her take them rollers. If 
it was anybody else but him he would n’t git to 
the P’int. Don’t make no difference, tho’, to 
him. He kin git along under water jes’ ’s well ’s 
on top.” 


154 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

As the boat flew past Keyport Light and 
Caleb laid his course to the Ledge, the keeper, 
now that the dawn had come, was in the lan- 
tern putting out his light and drawing down his 
shades. Seeing Caleb’s boat tossing below 
him, he took down his glass. 

What blamed fool is that tryin’ to get him- 
self measured for a coffin ? ” he said. 

The men were still asleep when Caleb reached 
the Ledge and threw open the door of the 
shanty, — all but Nickles, who was preparing 
breakfast. He looked at Caleb as if he had 
been an apparition, and followed him to the 
door of Captain Joe’s cabin, a little room by 
itself. He wanted to hear the dreadful news 
he brought. Unless some one was dead or 
dying no man would risk such a sea alone, — 
not even an old sailor like the diver. 

Caleb opened the door of the captain’s little 
room and closed it tight behind him, without a 
word to the cook. The captain lay asleep in 
his bunk, one big arm under his head,_his short 
curly hair matted close. 

“ Cap’n Joe,” said Caleb, laying his hand on 
the sleeping man’s shoulder and shaking him 
gently, — “ Cap’n Joe, it ’s me, — Caleb.” 

The captain raised his head and stared at 
him. Then he sat upright, trying to collect his 
thoughts. 

Cap’n, I had to come for ye, — I want ye.” 

“ It ain’t Aunty Bell, is it ? ” said Captain 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 


55 


Joe, springing to the floor. The early hour, the 
sough of the wind and beating of the rain on 
the roof of the shanty, Caleb dripping wet, with 
white drawn face, standing over him, told him 
in a flash the gravity of the visit. 

''No, it’s my Betty. She’s gone, — gone 
without a word.” 

" Gone ! Who with ? ” 

Caleb sunk on Captain Joe’s sea-chest, and 
buried his face in his blistered hands. For a 
moment he dared not trust himself to answer. 

" I don’t know — I don’t know ” — The 
broken words came between his rough fingers. 
Big tears rolled down his beard. 

" Who says so } How do you know she ’s 
gone .? ” 

" The butcher seen ’er goin’ ’board the boat 
at Noank yesterday mornin’. She fixed every- 
thin’ at home ’fore she went. I ain’t been to 
bed all night. I don’t know what ye kin do, 
but I had to come. I thought maybe you ’d 
go home with me.” 

The captain did not answer. Little scraps of 
gossip that he had heard now and then among 
the men floated through his memory. He had 
never paid any attention to them, except once 
when he had rebuked Nickles for repeating 
some slurring remark that Carleton had made 
one night at table. But even as he thought of 
them Betty’s face rose before him, — her sweet, 
girlish face with its dimples. 


156 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ It ’s a dirty lie, Caleb, whoever said it. I 
would n’t believe it if I see it myself. Ain’t 
no better gal ’n Betty ever breathed. Go with 
you ! Course I will ’s soon ’s I get my clo’es 
on.” He dressed hurriedly, caught up his oil- 
skins, flung wide the shanty door, and made his 
way over the platforms towards the wharf. 

When they reached the little cove in the rocks 
below, where the smaller boats were always shel- 
tered, and he saw the sharpie, he stopped short. 

“ You ain’t come out here in that, Caleb ? ” 

It was all I could get ; there warn’t nothin’ 
else handy, Cap’n Joe.” 

The captain looked the frail sharpie over 
from stem to stern, and then called to Nickles : 

Bring down one ’er them empty ker’sene five- 
gallon cans ; we got some bailin’ to do, I tell 
ye, ’fore we make Keyport Light. No, there 
ain’t nothin’ up,” noticing Nickles’s anxious 
face. Caleb wants me to Keyport, — that ’s 
all. Get breakfast, and tell the men, when they 
turn out, that I ’ll be back to-morrow in the 
Screamer, if it smooths down.” 

Caleb took his seat on the windward side of 
the tossing boat, holding the sheet. The cap- 
tain sat in the stern, one hand on the tiller. 
The kerosene-can lay at their feet. The knees 
of the two men touched. 

No better sailors ever guided a boat, and 
none ever realized more clearly the dangers of 
their position. 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 


57 


The captain settled himself in his seat in 
silence, his eyes watching every wave that 
raced by, and laid his course towards the white 
tower five miles away, blurred gray in the 
driving rain. Caleb held the sheet, his eyes 
facing the long, low line of hills where his 
cabin lay. As he hauled the sheet closer a 
heavy sigh broke from him. It was the first 
time since he had known Betty that he had 
set his face homeward without a thrill of de- 
light filling his heart. Captain Joe heard the 
smothered sigh, and, without turning his head, 
laid his great hand with its stiff thole-pin fingers 
tenderly on Caleb’s wrist. These two men 
knew each other. 

“ I would n’t worry, Caleb,” he said, after a 
little. That butcher sees too much, an’ 
sometimes he don’t know nothin’. He ’s allers 
got some cock-an’-bull story ’bout somebody ’r 
other. Only las’ week he come inter Gardiner’s 
drug store with a yarn ’bout the old man bein’ 
pisened, when it warn’t nothin’ but cramps. 
Ease a little, Caleb — s-o. Seems to me it’s 
blowin’ harder.” 

As he spoke, a quick slash of the cruel wind 
cut the top from a pursuing wave and flung it 
straight in Caleb’s face. The diver, with his 
stiffened fingers, combed the dripping spray 
from his beard, and without a word drew his 
tarpaulins closer. Captain Joe continued : — 

“ Wust ’r them huckster fellers is they ain’t 


158 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

got no better sense ’an to peddle everythin’ 
they know ’long with their stuff. Take in — 
take itiy Caleb ! That was a soaker.” The big 
wave that had broken within a foot of the 
rail had drenched them from head to foot. 
“ Butcher did n’t say nobody was with Betty, did 
he ” he asked, with a cant of his sou’wester to 
free it from sea-water. 

Caleb shook his head. 

“No, and there warn’t nobody. I tell ye 
this thing ’ll straighten itself out. Ye can’t 
tell what comes inter women’s heads sometimes. 
She might’er gone over to Greenport to git 
some fixin’s for Sunday, an’ would’ er come 
back in the afternoon boat, but it blowed so. 
Does she know anybody over there } ” 

Caleb did not answer. Somehow since he 
had seen Captain Joe hope had gone out of 
his heart. He had understood but too clearly 
the doubting question that had escaped the 
captain’s lips, as he sprang from the bed and 
looked into his eyes. He was not a coward ; 
he had faced without a quiver many dangers in 
his time ; more than once he had cut his air- 
hose, the last desperate chance of a diver when 
his lines are fouled. But his legs had shaken 
as he listened to Captain Joe. There was 
something in the tone of his voice that had 
unmanned him. 

For a mile or more the two men did not 
speak again. Wave after wave pursued them, 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW 


159 


and tossed its angry spray after them. Captain 
Joe now managed the sail with one hand, 
and steered with the other. Caleb bailed in- 
cessantly. 

When they ran under the lee of the light- 
house the keeper hailed them. He had recog- 
nized Captain Joe. Indeed, he had followed 
the sharpie with his glass until it reached the 
Ledge, and had watched its return “ with two 
fools instead of one,” he said. 

“ Anybody sick ” he shouted. 

Captain Joe shook his head, and the sharpie 
plunged on and rounded the point into the per- 
fect calm of the protecting shore. 

‘ Caleb made fast the boat when land was 
reached, while the captain sprang out. Then 
they both hurried up Caleb’s garden walk to 
the cabin door. 

There was no change in the house. The 
white china bowl still lay over the supper, the 
newspaper on the floor ; no one had entered 
since Caleb had left. 

The captain began a close search through 
the rooms : inside the clock, all over the 
mantelpiece, and on the sitting-room table. 
No scrap of writing could he find that shed a 
ray of light on Betty’s movements. Then he 
walked upstairs, Caleb following him, and 
opened the bedroom closet door. Her dresses 
hung in their usual places, — all but the one 
she wore and her cloak, Caleb said. 


l6o CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

‘‘ She ain’t gone for long,” said the captain 
thoughtfully, looking into the closet. ‘'You 
wait here, Caleb, and git yerself some breakfast. 
I may be gone two hours, I may be gone all 
day. When I find out for sure I ’ll come back. 
I ’m goin’ to Noank fust, to see them hands 
aboard the boat. It ’s Sunday, an’ she ain’t 
a-runnin’.” 

Caleb waited by the fireless stove. Hour 
after hour went by. Now and then he would 
open the front door and peer down the road, 
trying to make out the captain’s burly, hurry- 
ing form. When it grew dark he put a light 
in the window, and raised one shade on the 
kitchen side of the house, that the captain 
might know he was still at home and waiting. 

About nine o’clock Caleb heard the whistle 
of a tug and a voice calling for some one to 
catch a line. He opened the kitchen door and 
looked out on the wet gloom, that was broken 
here and there by the masthead lights rocking 
in the wind. Then he recognized one of the 
big Medford tugs lying off the dock below his 
garden ; the hands were making fast to a dock 
spile. Captain Joe sprang ashore, and the tug 
steamed off. 

The captain walked slowly towards the porch, 
entered the kitchen without a word, and sank 
heavily into a chair. Caleb made no sound ; he 
stood beside him, waiting, one hand grasping 
the table. 


WHAT THE BUTCHER SAW i6i 

“ She ’s gone, ain’t she ? ” 

The captain nodded his head. 

‘‘Gone! Who with asked Caleb, uncon- 
sciously repeating the words that had rung all 
day in his ears. 

“Bill Lacey,” said the captain, with choking 
voice. 


CHAPTER X 


STRAINS FROM BOCK’s ’cELLO 

Mrs. Leroy was one of the few women in 
town who realized what Sanford and his friends 
had long ago discovered, — the possibilities of 
New York in summer. To her it had now 
become its most delightful season, a season 
of long days and short nights — days and nights 
of utter idleness, great content, and blessed 
peace of mind ; a season when one could dine 
where one chose without a waiting cab and 
a hurried departure at the bidding of some- 
body else ; when the eleven o’clock lecturer is 
silent, the afternoon tea a memory, and the 
epidemic of the ten-course dinner a forgotten 
plague. 

She had grown to believe with Sanford that 
if one could impress the possibility of these 
truths upon the friends one loved, so that they, 
and only they, could tiptoe back into their 
houses, keep their blinds closed and their ser- 
vants hidden, and so delude the balance of the 
world — those they did not love, the uncongenial, 
the tiresome, the bumptious, and the aggres- 
sive — into believing that they had fled ; if this 


STRAINS FROM BOCK’S ’CELLO 163 

little trick could be played on the world every 
June, and for three long happy months only 
congenial spirits could spread themselves over 
space and eat their lotus in peace (and with 
their fingers, if they so pleased), then would 
each one discover that New York in summer 
could indeed be made the Eldorado of one’s 
dreams. 

Her own front door on Gramercy Park was 
never barricaded, nor was her house dismantled. 
She changed its dress in May and put it into 
charming summer attire of matting and chintz, 
making it a rare and refreshing retreat ; and 
more than half her time she spent within its 
walls, running down to Medford whenever the 
cares of that establishment required attention, 
or a change of mood made a change of scene 
desirable. 

Since the visit when Captain Joe had dis- 
missed her with his thanks from the warehouse 
hospital at Keyport she had gone to Medford 
but once. 

The major had been a constant visitor, and 
Jack Hardy and his fiancee, Helen Shirley, had 
on more than one occasion hidden themselves, 
on moonlight nights, in the shadows of the big 
palms fringing her balcony overlooking the 
Park. Sanford had not seen her as often as he 
wished. Work on the Ledge had kept him at 
Keyport, and allowed him but little time in 
town. 


164 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

With the setting of the derricks, however, 
he felt himself at liberty for a holiday, and he 
had looked forward with a feeling of almost 
boyish enthusiasm — which he never quite out- 
grew — to a few days’ leisure in town, and a 
morning or two with Mrs. Leroy. 

When the maid brought up his card, Mrs. 
Leroy was at her desk in the little boudoir, 
with its heaps of silk cushions, its disorder of 
books, and bloom of mignonette and red gera- 
niums* filling the windows that looked straight 
into the trees of the Park. Here the sun 
shone in winter, and here the moonlight traced 
the outlines of bare branches upon her window- 
shades, and here in summer the coolest of cool 
shadows fell from tree and awning. 

^‘Why, I expected you yesterday, Henry,” 
she said, holding out her hand, seating Sanford 
upon the divan, and drawing up a chair beside 
him. “ What happened ? ” 

“Nothing more serious than an elopement.” 

“ Not Jack and Helen Shirley ? ” she said, 
laughing. 

“ No ; I wish it were ; they would go on 
loving each other. This affair brings misery. 
It’s Caleb West’s wife. Captain Joe is half 
crazy about it, and poor Caleb is heartbroken. 
She has gone off with that young fellow she 
was nursing the day you came up with the 
major.” 

“ Eloped ! Pretty doings, I must say Yes, 


STRAINS FROM BOCK’S ’CELLO 165 

I remember her, — a trim, rather pretty little 
woman with short curly hair. I caught a 
glimpse of Caleb, too, you know, as he came in 
from the Ledge. He seemed years older than 
she. What had he done to her } ” 

“ Nothing, so far as I know, except love her 
and take care of her. Poor Caleb ! ” 

“What did he let her go for, then.^ I’m 
sorry for the old diver, but it was his fault, 
somewhere. The girl had as good a face as I 
ever looked into. She never left her husband 
without some cause, poor child. What else 
has happened at Keyport ” 

“Kate, don’t talk so. She’s treated him 
shamefully. They have only been married two 
years.” 

Mrs. Leroy bent her head and looked out 
under the awnings for a moment in a thought- 
ful way. “ Only two years ? ” she said, with 
some bitterness. “The poor child was impa- 
tient. When she had tried it for fifteen she 
would have become accustomed to it. It is the 
same old story, I suppose. We hear it every 
day. He ugly and old and selfish, never think- 
ing of what she would like and what she longed 
for, keeping her shut up to sing for him when 
she wanted now and then to sing for herself ; 
and then she found the door of the cage open, 
and out she flew. Poor little soul ! I pity 
her. She had better have borne it ; it is a 
poor place outside for a tired foot ; and she ’g 


i66 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

nothing but a child.” Then musing, patting 
her slipper impatiently, “What sort of a man 
has she gone with I couldn’t see him that 
morning, she hung over him so close, and his 
head was so bandaged.” 

“ I don’t know much about him. I have n’t 
known him long,” Sanford answered carelessly. 

“ Good-looking, is n’t he, and alive, and with 
something human and manlike about him ” 
she asked, leaning forward eagerly, her hands 
in her lap. 

“Yes, I suppose so. He could climb like a 
cat, anyway,” said Sanford. 

“ Yes, I know, Henry. I see it all. I knew 
it was the same old story. She wanted some- 
thing fresh and young, — some one just to play 
with, child as she is, some one nearer her own 
age to love. She was lonely. Nothing for her 
to do but sit down and wait for him to come 
home. Poor child,” with a sigh, “her misery 
only begins now. What else have you to tell 
me ? ” 

“ Nothing, except that all of the derricks 
tumbled. I wired you about it. They are all 
up now, thank goodness.” He knew her inter- 
est was only perfunctory. Her mind, evidently, 
was still on Betty, but he went on with his 
story : “ Everybody got soaking wet. Captain 
Joe was in the water for hours. But we stuck 
to it. Narrowest escape the men have had this 
summer, Kate, since the Screamer’s. It ’s a 


STRAINS FROM BOCK’S ’CELLO 167 

great mercy nobody was hurt. I expected every 
minute some one would get crushed. No one 
but Captain Joe could have got them up that 
afternoon. It blew a gale for three days. 
When did you get here } I thought you had 
gone back to Medford until Sam brought me 
your note.” 

“No, I am still here, and shall be here for a 
week. Now, don’t tell me you ’re going back 
to-night ? ” 

“No, I ’m not, but I can’t say how soon ; not 
before the masonry begins, anyhow. Jack 
Hardy is coming to-morrow night to my rooms. 
I have asked a few fellows to meet him, — 
Smearly and Curran, and old Bock with his 
’cello, and some others. Since Jack’s engage- 
ment he’s the happiest fellow alive.” 

“They all are at first, Henry,” said Mrs. 
Leroy, laughing, her head thrown back. The 
memory of Jack and Helen was still so fresh 
and happy a one that it instantly changed her 
mood. 

Betty and Caleb for the moment were for- 
gotten, while they talked of Helen’s future, 
of the change in Jack’s life, of his new house- 
keeping, and of the thousand and one things 
that interested them both, — the kind of talk 
that two such friends indulge in who have been 
parted for a week or more, and who, in the 
first ten minutes, run lightly over their individ- 
ual experiences, so that both may start fresh 


i68 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

again with nothing hidden in either life. When 
he rose to go, she kept him standing while she 
pinned in his buttonhole a sprig of mignonette 
picked from her window-box, and said, with the 
deepest interest, “I can’t get that poor child 
out of my mind. Don’t be too hard on her, 
Henry ; she ’s the one who will suffer most.” 

When Sanford reached his rooms again he 
sank into a chair which Sam had drawn close 
to the window, and sighed with content. Oh, 
these days off ! ” he exclaimed. 

The appointments of his own apartments 
seemed never so satisfying and so welcome as 
when he had spent a week with his men, taking 
his share of the exposure with all the discom- 
forts that it brought. His early life had fitted 
him for these changes, and a certain cosmo- 
politan spirit in the man, a sort of underlying 
stratum of Bohemianism, had made it easy for 
him to adapt himself to his surroundings, what- 
ever they might be. Not that his restless spirit 
could long have endured any life, either rough 
or luxurious, that repeated itself day after day. 
He could idle with the idlest, but he must also 
work when the necessity came, and that with 
all his might. 

Sam always made some special preparation 
for his home-coming. To-day the awnings were 
hung over window and balcony, and the most 
delightful of luncheons had been arranged, — 
cucumbers smothered in ice, soft-shell crabs. 


STRAINS FROM BOCK'S 'CELLO 169 

and a roll of cream cheese with a dash of Kirsch 
and sugar. “I know he don’t git nufhn fit 
for a dog to eat when he’s away. ’Fo’ God I 
don’t know how he stands it,” Sam was accus- 
tomed to observe to those of his friends who 
sometimes watched his preparations. 

Major’s done been hyar ’mos’ ebery day 
you been gone, sah,” he said, drawing out San- 
ford’s chair, when luncheon was served. “ How 
is it, sah, — am I to mix a cocktail ebery time 
he comes } An’ dat box ob yo’ big cigars am 
putty nigh gone ; ain’t no more ’n fo’r ’r five of 
’em lef’.” The major, Sam forgot to mention, 
was only partly to blame for these two shrink- 
ages in Sanford’s stores. 

What does he come so often for, Sam ? ” 
asked Sanford, laughing. 

^'Dat’s mor’ ’an I know, sah, ’cept he so 
anxious to git you back, he says. He come 
twice a day to see if you ’re yere. Co’se dere 
ain’t nuffin cooked, an’ so he don’t git nuffin 
to eat, but golly! he’s powerful on jewlips. I 
done tole him yesterday you would n’t be back 
till to-morrow night. Dat whiskey’s all gin 
out ; he saw der empty bottle hisse’f ; he ain’t 
been yere agin to-day,” with a chuckle. ^ 

“Always give the major whatever he wants,” 
said Sanford. “And Sam,” he called as that 
darky was disappearing in the pantry, “ a few 
gentlemen will be here to supper to-morrow 
night. Remind me to make a list in the morn- 
ing of what you will want.” 


170 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

The list was made out, and a very toothsome 
and cooling list it was, ~ a frozen melon tapped 
and filled with a pint of Pommery sec, by way 
of beginning. AJl the trays and small tables 
with their pipes and smokables were brought 
out, a music-stand was opened and set up near 
a convenient shaded candle, and the lid of the 
piano was lifted and propped up rabbit-trap 
fashion. 

Just as the moon was rising, silvering the 
tops of the trees in the square below, Smearly 
in white flannels and flaming tie arrived fresh 
from his studio, where he had been at work on 
a ceiling for some millionaire’s salon. Jack fol- 
lowed in correct evening dress, and Curran from 
his office, in a business suit. The major was 
arrayed in a nondescript combination of yellow 
nankeen and black bombazine, that would have 
made him an admirable model for a poster in 
two tints. He was still full of his experiences 
at the warehouse hospital after the accident to 
the Screamer. His little trip to Keyport as 
acting escort to Mrs. Leroy had not only opened 
his eyes to a class of workingmen of whose 
existence he had never dreamed, but it had also 
furijished him with a new and inexhaustible 
topic of conversation. Every visitor at his 
downtown office had listened to his recital by 
the hour. To-night, however, the major had a 
new audience, and a new audience always added 
fuel to the fire of his eloquence. 


STRAINS FROM BOCK’S ’CELLO 171 

When the subject of the work at the Ledge 
came up, and the sympathy of everybody was 
expressed to Sanford over the calamity to the 
Screamer, — they had not seen him since the 
explosion, — the major broke out : — 

“You ought to have gone with us, my dear 
Sm early.” (To have been the only eye-witness 
at the front, except Sanford himself, gave the 
maj or great scope.) “ Giants, suh, — every man 
of ’em ; a race, suh, that would do credit to the 
Vikings ; bifurcated walruses, suh ; amphibious 
titans, that can work as well in water as out 
of it. No wonder our dear Henry ” (this term 
of affection was not unusual with the major) 
“ accomplishes such wonders. I can readily 
understand why you never see such fellows 
anywhere else ; they, dive under water when 
the season closes,” he continued, laughing, and, 
leaning over Curran’s shoulder, helped' himself 
to one of the cigars Sam was just bringing in. 

“And the major outdid himself, that day, 
in nursing them,” interrupted Sanford. “You 
would have been surprised, Jack, to see him 
take hold. When I turned in for the night on 
a cot, he was giving one of the derrickmen a 
sponge bath.” 

“Learned it in the army,” said Curran, with 
a sly look at Smearly. Both of them knew the 
origin of the major’s military title. 

The. major’s chin was upturned in the air; 
his head was wreathed in smoke, the match. 


172 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

still aflame, held aloft with outstretched hand. 
He always lighted his cigars in this lordly way. 

“Many years ago, gentlemen,” the major re- 
plied, distending his chest, throwing away the 
match, and accepting the compliment in perfect 
good faith ; “ but these are things one never 
forgets.” The major had never seen the inside 
of a camp hospital in his life. 

The guests now distributed themselves, each 
after the manner of his likes : Curran full length 
on a divan, the afternoon paper in his hand ; 
Jack on the floor, his back to the wall, a cushion 
behind his head ; Smearly in an armchair ; and 
the major bolt upright on a camp-stool near a 
table which held a select collection of drink- 
ables, presided over by a bottle of seltzer in a 
silver holder. Sam moved about like a restless 
shadow, obedient to the slightest lifting of San- 
ford’s eyebrow, when a glass needed filling or a 
pipe replenishing. 

At ten o’clock, lugging in his great ’cello, 
Bock came, — short, round, and oily, with a 
red face that beamed with good humor, and 
fat puffy hands that wrinkled in pleats when 
he held his bow. Across a perpetually moist 
forehead was pasted a lock of black hair. He 
wore a threadbare coat spattered with spots, 
baggy black trousers, and a four-button brown 
holland waistcoat, never clean, — sometimes 
connected with a collar so much ashamed of 
the condition of its companion shirt-front that 


STRAINS FROM BOCK'S 'CELLO 173 

it barely showed its face over a black stock 
that was held together by a spring. A man 
who was kindly and loyal ; who loved all his 
kind, spoke six languages, wrote for the Ency- 
clopaedia, and made a ’cello sing like an angel. 

Despite his frouziness, everybody who knew 
Bock liked him ; those who heard him play 
loved him. There was a pathos, a tender, sym- 
pathetic quality in his touch, that one never 
forgot : it always seemed as if, somehow, ready 
tears lingered under his bow. “With a tone 
like Bock’s” was the highest compliment one 
could pay a musician. To Sanford this man’s 
heart was dearer than his genius. 

“Why, Bock, old man,” he called, “ we did n’t 
expect you till eleven.” 

“Yes, I know, Henri, but ze first wiolin, he 
take my place. Zey will not know ze differ- 
ence.” One fat hand was held up deprecat- 
ingly, the fingers outspread. “ Everybody fan 
and drink ze beer. Ah, Meester Hardy, I have 
hear ze news ; so you will leave ze brotherhood. 
And I hear,” lowering his voice and laying his 
other fat hand affectionately on Jack’s, “zat 
she ees most lofely. Ah, it ees ze best zing,” 
his voice rising again. “ When ve get old and 
ugly like old Bock, and so heels over head wiz 
all sorts of big zings to build like Mr. Sanford, 
or like poor Smearly paint, paint, all ze time 
paint, it ees too late to zink of ze settle down. 
I^es it not so, you man Curran over zere, wiz 


174 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

your newspaper over your head ? ” This time 
his voice was flung straight at the recumbent 
editor as a climax to his breezy salutation. 

“ Yes, you ’re right, Bock; you ’re ugly enough 
to crowd a dime museum, but I ’ll forgive you 
everything if you’ll put some life into your 
strings. I heard your orchestra the other night, 
and the first and second violins ruined the over- 
ture. What the devil do you keep a lot of ” — 

“ What ees ze matter wiz ze overture, Mees- 
ter Ole Bull } ” said Bock, pitching his voice in 
a high key, squeezing down on the divan and 
pinching Curran’s arm with his fat fingers. 

“ Everything was the matter. The brass 
drowned the strings, and Reynier might have 
had hair-oil on his bow for all the sound you 
heard. Then the tempo was a beat too slow.” 

“ Henri Sanford, do you hear zis crazy man 
zat does not know one zing, and lie flat on 
his back and talk such nonsense ^ Ze wiolin, 
Meester Musical Editor Curran, must be pianis- 
simo, — only ze leetle, ze ve’y leetle, you hear. 
Ze aria is carried by ze reeds.” 

Carried by your grandmother ! ” said Cur- 
ran, springing from the divan. “ Here, Sam, 
put a light on the piano. Now listen, you 
pagan. Beethoven would get out of his grave 
if he could hear you murder his music. The 
three bars are so,” — touching the keys, “not 
so ! ” And thus the argument went on. 

Out on the balcony, Smearly and Quigley, 


STRAINS FROM BOCK’S ’CELLO 175 

the marine painter, who had just come in, were 
talking about the row at the Academy over the 
rejection of Morley’s picture, while the major 
was in full swing with Hardy, Sanford, and 
some of the later arrivals, including old Profes- 
sor Max Shutters, the biologist, who had been 
so impressively introduced by Curran to the dis- 
tinguished Pocomokian that the professor had 
at once mistaken the major for a brother sci- 
entist. 

‘‘And you say. Professor Slocomb,” said the 
savant, his hand forming a sounding-board be- 
hind his ear, “that the terrapin, now practically 
extinct, was really plentiful in your day ? ” 

“ My learned suh, I have gone down to the 
edge of my lawn, overlooking the salt-marsh, 
and seen ’em crawling around like potato bugs. 
The niggahs could n’t walk the shore at night 
without trampling on ’em. This craze of yo’r 
millionaire epicures for one of the commonest 
shell-fish we have is” — 

“ Amphibia,” suggested the professor, as if he 
had recognized a mere slip of the tongue. “ I 
presume you are referring to the Malaclem- 
mys palustris, — the diamond-back species.” 

“You are right, suh,” said the major. “I 
had forgotten the classification for the mo- 
ment,” with an air of being perfectly at home 
on the subject. “ The craze for the palustris, 
my dear suh, is one of the unaccountable signs 
of the times ; it is the beginning of the fall of 


176 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

our institutions, suh. We cannot forget the 
dishes of peacock tongues in the old Roman 
days, — a thousand peacocks at a cou’se, suh.” 

The major would have continued down 
through Gibbon and Macaulay if Curran had 
not shouted out, Keep still, every soul of you ! 
Bock is going to give us the Serenade.” 

The men crowded about the piano. Smearly 
stood ready to turn the leaves of the music for 
Curran, and Jack drew a chair closer to the 
’cellist. 

Bock uncovered the ’cello and held it be- 
tween his knees, his fat hand resting lightly 
on the strings. As Curran, with his foot on 
the pedal of the piano, passed his hand rapidly 
over the keys, Bock’s head sank to the level 
of his shoulders, his straggling hair fell over his 
coat collar, his raised fingers balanced for a 
moment the short bow, and then Schubert’s 
masterpiece poured out the very fullness of its 
heart. 

A profound hush, broken only by the music, 
fell on the room. The old professor leaned for- 
ward, both hands cupped behind his ears. San- 
ford and Jack smoked on, their eyes half closed, 
and even the major withheld his hand from the 
well-appointed tray and looked into his empty 
glass. 

At a time when the spell was deepest and 
the listeners held their breath, the perfect har- 
mony was broken by a discordant ring at the 


STRAINS FROM BOCK’S ’CELLO 177 

outer door. Curran turned his head angrily, 
and Sanford looked at Sam, who glided to the 
door with a catlike tread, opening it without a 
sound, and closing it gentl}^ behind him. The 
symphony continued, the music rising in in- 
terest, and the listeners forgot the threatened 
interruption. 

Then the door opened again, and Sam, mak- 
ing a wide detour, bent over Sanford and whis- 
pered in his ear. A woman wanted to see him 
in the hall. Sanford started, as if annoyed, 
arose from his seat, and again the knob was 
noiselessly turned and the door as noiselessly 
closed, shutting Sanford into the corridor. 

‘‘ Do you wish to see me, madam } ” he asked, 
crossing to a chair in which the woman sat 
wrapped in a long cloak, her face buried in her 
hands. 

The woman turned her head towards him 
without raising her eyelids. 

‘‘And you don’t know me any more, Mr. 
Sanford ? ” 

“Betty! You here I ” said Sanford, looking 
in astonishment at the crouching figure before 
him. 

“I had to come, sir. The druggist at the 
corner showed me the house. I was a-waitin’ 
outside in the street below, hopin’ to see you 
come in. Then I heard the music and knew 
you were home.” The voice shook with every 
word. The young dimpled face was drawn and 


178 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


pale, the pretty curly hair in disorder about her 
forehead. She' had the air of one who had 
been hunted and had just found shelter. 

“ Does Lacey know you are here ? ” asked 
Sanford, a dim suspicion rising in his mind. 

Betty shivered slightly, as if the name had 
hurt her. “ No, sir. I left him two nights ago. 
I got away while he was asleep. All I want 
now is a place for to-night, and then perhaps 
to-morrow I can get work.” 

“And you have no money asked Sanford. 

Betty shook her head. “ I had a little of my 
own, but it ’s all gone, and I ’m so tired, and — 
the city frightens me so — when the night 
comes.” The head dropped lower, the sobs 
choking her. After a little she went on, dry- 
ing her eyes with her handkerchief, rolled tight 
in one hand ; and resting her cheek on the bent 
fingers, “ I did n’t know nobody but you, Mr. 
Sanford. I can pay it back.” The voice was 
scarcely audible. 

Sanford stood looking down upon her bowed 
head. The tired eyelids were half closed, the 
tears glistening in the light of the overhanging 
lamp, the 'shadows of her black curls flecking 
her face. The cloak hung loosely about her, 
the curve of her pretty shoulders outlined in 
its folds. Then she lifted her head, and, look- 
ing Sanford in the eyes for the first time, said 
in a broken, halting voice, “ Did you — did you 
’ — see — Caleb — Mr. Sanford ? ” 


STRAINS FROM BOCK’S ’CELLO 179 

Sanford nodded slowly in answer. He was 
trying to make up his mind what he should do 
with a woman who had broken the heart of a 
man like Caleb. Through the closed door he 
heard the strains of Bock’s ’cello, the notes 
vibrating plaintively. They belonged to some 
other world. 

“ Betty,” he said, leaning over her, “ how 
could you do it ” 

The girl covered her face with her hands 
and shrank within her cloak. Sanford went on, 
his sense of Caleb’s wrongs overpowering him : 

What could Lacey do for you ? If you could 
once see Caleb’s face you would never forgive 
yourself. No woman has a right to leave a man 
who was as good to her as your husband was 
to you. And now what has it all come to ? 
You Ve ruined yourself, and broken his heart.” 

The girl trembled and bent her head, cower- 
ing under the pitiless words; then, in a half- 
dazed way, she rose from her seat, and, without 
looking at Sanford, said in a tired, hopeless 
voice, as if every word brought a pain, “ I think 
I ’ll go, Mr. Sanford.” 

Sanford watched her silently as she drew her 
cloak about her and turned to the door. The 
pathos of the shrinking girlish figure overcame 
him. He began to wonder if there were some- 
thing under it all that even Captain Joe did not 
know of. Then he remembered the tones of 
compassion in Mrs. Leroy’s voice when her 


i8o CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

heart had gone out to this girl the morning 
before, as she said, ‘‘ Poor child, her misery only 
begins now ; it is a poor place for a tired foot.” 

P'or an instant he stood irresolute. “ Wait,” 
he said. “Wait a moment.” 

Betty stood still, without raising her head. 

Sanford paused in deep thought, with averted 
eyes. 

“Betty,” he murmured at last in a softened 
voice, “you can’t go out like this alone. I’ll 
take you, child, where you will be safe for the 
night.” 


CHAPTER XI 


CAPTAIN joe’s telegram 

The morning after Betty’s visit to Sanford’s 
apartments, Captain Joe was seen hurrying up 
the shore road at Keyport toward his cottage. 
His eyes shone with excitement, and his breath 
came in short, quick puffs. He wore his rough 
working-clothes, and held a yellow envelope in 
his hand. When he reached the garden gate 
he swung it open with so mighty a jerk that 
the sound of the dangling ball and chain thump- 
ing against the palings brought Aunty Bell 
running to the porch. 

“ Sakes alive, Cap’n Joe ! ” she exclaimed, 
following him into the kitchen, whatever ’s 
the matter ? Ain’t nobody hurted, is there ? ” 

“There will be ef I don’t git to New York 
purty quick. Mr. Sanford ’s got Betty, an’ 
them Leroy folks is a-keepin’ on her till I git 
there.” 

Aunty Bell sank into a chair, her hands 
twisted in her apron, the tears starting in her 
eyes. 

“ Who says so ? ” 

“Telegram — come in the night,” he an- 


i 82 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

swered, almost breathless, throwing the yellow 
envelope into her lap. “ Git me a clean shirt 
quick as God ’ll let ye. I ain’t got but ten 
minutes to catch that eight-ten train.” 

“ But ye ain’t a-goin’ till ye see Caleb, be 
ye ? He won’t like it, maybe, if ” — 

“ Don’t ye stop there talkin’. Aunty Bell. 
Do as I tell ye,” he said, stripping off his sus- 
penders and tugging at his blue flannel shirt. 
“ I ain’t a-goin’ to stop for nobody nor nothin’. 
That little gal ’s fetched up hard jes’ where I 
knowed she would, an’ I won’t have a minute’s 
peace till I git my hands onto her. I ain’t 
slep’ a night since she left, an’ you know it.” 

How do ye know she ’ll come with ye ? ” 
asked Aunty Bell, as she gave him his shirt. 
Her hands were trembling. 

“ I ain’t a-worritin’,” he answered, thrusting 
his head and big chest into the stiff garment ; 
fumbling, as he spoke, with his brown hands, 
for the buttons. Gimme that collar.” 

“ Well, I ’m kind’er wonderin’ if ye had n’t 
better let Caleb know. I don’t know what 
Caleb ’ll say ” — 

“ I ain’t a-carin’ what Caleb says. I ’ll stop 
that leak when I git to ’t.” He held his breath 
for a moment and clutched the porcelain but- 
ton with his big fingers, trying to screw it 
into his collar, as if it had been a nut on a 
bolt. “ Here, catch hold o’ this button ; it ’s 
so plaguy tight. No, — I don’t want no tooth- 


CAPTAIN JOE’S TELEGRAM 183 

brush, nor nothin’. I would n’t ’er come home 
at all, but I was so gormecl up, an’ she ’s along 
with them Leroy folks Mr. Sanford knows. 
My — my” — he continued, forcing his great 
arms through the tight sleeves of his Sunday 
coat with a humping motion of his back, and 
starting toward the door. “Jes’ to think o’ 
Betty wanderin’ ’bout them streets at night !” 

“ Why, ye ain’t got no cravat on, Cap’n 
Joe ! ” called Aunty Bell, running after him, tie 
in hand, to the porch. 

“ Here, give it to me ! ” he cried, snatching 
it and cramming it into his pocket. ‘‘ I ’ll fix 
it on the train.” In another moment he was 
halfway down the plank walk, waving his hand, 
shouting back over his shoulder, “ Send word 
to Cap’n Bob to load them other big stone an’ 
git ’em to the Ledge to-day ; the wind ’s goin’ 
to haul to the south’ard. I ’ll be back ’bout 
eight o’clock to-night.” 

Aunty Bell looked after his hurrying figure 
until the trees shut it from view ; then, gasp- 
ing with excitement, angry with herself for hav- 
ing asked so little, she reentered the kitchen 
and again dropped into a chair. 

Betty’s flight had been a sore blow to the 
bustling little wife. She had been the last to 
believe that Betty had really deserted Caleb 
for Lacey, even after Captain Joe had told her 
how the mate of the Greenport boat had seen 
them board the New York train together. 


i 84 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

As for the captain, he had gone about his 
work with his mind filled with varying emotions : 
sympathy for Caleb, sorrow and mortification 
over Betty’s fall, and bitter, intense, dangerous 
hatred of Lacey. These were each in turn, as 
they assailed her, consumed by a never ending 
hunger to get the child home again, that she 
might begin the undoing of her fatal step. To 
him she was still the little girl he used to meet 
on the road, with her hair in a tangle about her 
head, her books under her arm. As he had 
never fully realized, even when she married 
Caleb, that anything had increased her respon- 
sibilities, or that she could be anything but the 
child she looked, — so he could not now escape 
the conviction that somehow or other she ’d 
been hoodooed,” as he expressed it, and that 
when she came to herself her very soul would 
cry out in bitter agony. 

Every day since her flight he had been early 
and late at the telegraph office, and had directed 
Bert Simmons, the letter-carrier on the shore 
road, to hunt him up wherever he might be, — 
on the dock or aboard his boat, — should a letter 
come bearing his name. The telegram, there- 
fore, was not a surprise. That Sanford should 
have found her was what he could not under- 
stand. 

Aunty Bell, with the big secret weighing at 
her heart, busied herself about the house, so as 
to make the hours pass quickly. She was more 


CAPTAIN JOE’S TELEGRAM 185 

conservative and less impulsive in many things 
than the captain ; that is, she was apt to con- 
sider the opinions of her neighbors, and shape 
her course accordingly, unless stopped by one 
of her husband’s outbursts and won over to his 
way of thinking. The captain knew no law but 
his own emotions, and his innate sense of right 
and wrong sustained by his indomitable will 
and courage. If the other folks did n’t like it, 
the other folks had to get out of the way ; he 
went straight on. 

“Ain’t nobody goin’ to have nothin’ to do 
with Betty, if she does git tired of Lacey an’ 
wants to come home, poor child,” Aunty Bell 
had said to Captain Joe only the night before, 
as they sat together at supper. “ Them Nevins 
gals was sayin’ yesterday they ’d pass her on 
the road and would n’t speak to her, not if they 
see her starvin’, and was a-goin’ on awful about 
it ; and Mis’ Taft said ” — 

The captain raised his head quickly. “Jane 
Bell,” — when the captain called Aunty Bell 
“Jane” the situation was serious, — “I ain’t 
got nothin’ to do with them Nevins gals, nor 
Mis’ Taft, nor nobody else, and you ain’t got 
nothin’, neither. Ain’t we hed this child run- 
nin’ in an’ out here jes’ like a kitten ever since 
we been here ? Don’t you know clean down 
in yer heart that there ain’t no better gal ever 
lived ’n Betty ? Ain’t we all liable to go ’stray, 
and ain’t we all of us so dirt mean that if we 


i86 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


had our hatches off there ain’t nobody who see 
our cargo would speak to us ? Now don’t let 
me hear no more about folks passin’ her by. 
I ain’t a-goin’ to pass her by, and you ain’t, 
neither, if them Nevins gals and old Mother 
Taft and the whole kit and caboodle of ’em 
walks on t’other side.” 

She remembered the very sound of these 
words, as she rested for a moment, rocking to 
and fro, in the kitchen, after the captain had 
gone, her fat little feet swinging clear of the 
floor. She could even hear the tone of his 
voice, and could see the flashing of his eye. 
The remembrance gave her courage. She 
wanted some one to come in, that she might 
put on the captain’s armor and fight for the 
child herself. 

She had not long to wait. Mrs. Taft was 
already coming up the walk, — for dinner, per- 
haps. Carleton was walking beside her. They 
had met at the gate. 

I heard the captain had to go to New York, 
Aunty Bell, and so I thought maybe you ’d be 
alone,” said Mrs. Taft, taking off her bonnet. 
“ No news from the runaway, I suppose } Ain’t 
it dreadful } She ’s the last girl in the world I 
would ’a’ thought of doing a thing like that.” 

‘‘We ain’t none of us perfect. Mis’ Taft. 
Take a chair, Mr. Carleton. If we was, we 
could most of us stay here ; there would n’t 
be no use o’ heaven.” 


CAPTAIN JOE’S TELEGRAM 187 

But, Aunty Bell ! ” exclaimed the visitor, 
“you surely don’t think — Why, it ’s awful 
for Betty to go and do what she did ” — 

“I ain’t judgin’ nobody, Mis’ Taft. I ain’t 
a-blamin’ Betty, an’ I ain’t a-blamin’ Caleb. 
I ’m only thinkin’ of all the sufferin’ that poor 
child ’s got to go through now, an’ what a mean 
world this is for her to have to live in.” 

“ Serves the old man right for marrying a 
girl young enough to be his daughter,” said 
Carleton, with a laugh, tilting back his chair, 

— his favorite attitude. “ I made up my mind 
the first day I saw her that she was a little 
larky. She ’s been fooling West all summer, 

— anybody could see that.” He had not for- 
given the look in Caleb’s eye that afternoon 
aboard the Screamer. “ When ’s the captain 
coming home } ” 

Aunty Bell looked at the superintendent, 
her lips curling, as the hard, dry laugh rang in 
her ears. She had never fancied him, and she 
liked him less now than ever. Her first im- 
23ulse was to give him a piece of her mind, — 
an indigestible morsel when served hot. Then 
she remembered that her husband was having 
some difficulty with him about the acceptance 
of the concrete disk, and so her temper, chilled 
by this more politic second thought, cooled 
down and stiffened into a frigid determination 
not to invite him to dinner if she ate nothing 
herself all day. 


i88 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ Cap’n ’ll be here in the mornin’,” she an- 
swered curtly. “ Got any message for him 

“Yes. Tell him I was out to the Ledge 
yesterday with my transit, and the concrete is 
too low by six inches near the southeast derrick. 
It ’s got to come up to grade before I can cer- 
tify. I thought I ’d come in and tell him, — 
he wanted to know.” 

The door opened, and the tall form of Cap- 
tain Bob Brandt, the Screamer’s skipper, en- 
tered. 

“Excuse me. Mis’ Bell,” he said, removing 
his hat and bowing good-humoredly to every- 
body. “ I saw ye pass, Mr. Carleton, an’ I 
wanted to tell ye that we ’re ready now to h’ist 
sail fur the Ledge. We got ’leven stone on. 
Caleb ain’t workin’ this week, an’ one o’ the 
other divers ’s a-goin’ to set ’em. Guess it ’s 
all right ; the worst is all done. Will you go 
out with us, or trust me to git ’em right ? ” 

“Well, where are you going to put ’em.^” 
asked Carleton in his voice of authority. 

“ Las’ time Caleb was down, sir, he said he 
wanted four more stone near the boat-landin’, 
in about twelve foot o’ water, to finish that 
row ; then we kin begin another layer nex’ to 
’em, if ye say so. S’pose you know Cap’n Joe 
ain’t here J — gone to New York. Will you go 
with us } ” 

“ No ; you set ’em. I ’ll come out in the tug 
in the morning and drop a rod on ’em, and if 


CAPTAIN JOE’S TELEGRAM 189 

they’re not right you’ll have to take ’em up 
again. That concrete ’s out of level, you know.” 

What concrete ? ” 

“ Why, the big circular disk,” snapped Carle- 
ton. 

This was only another excuse of Carleton’s 
for refusing to sign the certificate. The engi- 
neer had postponed his visit, and so this fresh 
obstruction was necessary to maintain his policy 
of delay. 

Not when I see it, sir, three days ago,” 
said Captain Brandt in surprise. “ It was dead 
low water, an’ the tide jest touched the edges 
of the outer band all round even.” 

^‘Well, I guess I know,” retorted the super- 
intendent, flaring up. “ I was out there yes- 
terday with a level, an’ walked all over it.” 

“Must’er got yer feet wet, then, sir,” said 
the skipper, with a laugh, as he turned toward 
the door. The tide ’s been fro^ eight inches 
to a foot higher ’n usual for three days past ; 
it ’s full-moon tides.” 

During the talk Aunty Bell and Mrs. Taft 
had slipped into the sitting-room, and the 
superintendent, finding himself alone, called 
to the skipper, and joined him on the garden 
walk. 

As the afternoon hours wore on, and no 
other callers came in, — Mrs. Taft having 
gone, — Aunty Bell brought a big basket, filled 
with an assortment of yarn stockings of varied 


190 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

stains and repairs, out to a chair on the porch, 
and made believe to herself that she was put- 
ting them in order for the captain when he 
should need a dry pair. Now and then she 
would stop, her hand in the rough stocking, 
her needle poised, her mind going back to the 
days when she first moved to Keyport, and 
this curly-haired girl from the fishing- village a 
mile or more away had won her heart. Since 
the death of that baby girl of long ago, Betty, 
somehow, had filled day by day all the deep 
corners of the sore heart, still aching from this 
earlier sorrow. When the girl’s mother died, 
a few months after Betty’s marriage. Aunty 
Bell had thrown a shawl over her head, and, 
going to Caleb’s cabin, had mounted the stairs 
to Betty’s little room and shut the door. With 
infinite tenderness she had drawn the girl’s 
head down on her own bosom, and had poured 
out to her all the mother’s love she had in her 
own heart, and had told her of that daughter 
of her dreams. Betty had not forgotten it, 
and among all those she knew on the shore 
road she loved Aunty Bell the best. There 
were few days in the week — particularly in the 
summer, when Caleb was away — that she was 
not doing something for Aunty Bell, her bright 
face and merry, ringing laugh filling the house 
and the little woman’s life, — an infectious, 
bubbling, girlish laugh that made it a delight 
to be with her. 


CAPTAIN JOE’S TELEGRAM 


191 

But a fresh thought, like a draft from an 
open door, rushed into Aunty Bell’s mind with 
a force that sent a shiver through her tender 
heart, and chilled every kind impulse. Sup- 
pose Caleb should turn his back on this girl 
wife of his. What then ? Ought she to take 
her to her heart and brave it out with the neigh- 
bors } What sort of an example was it to 
other young women along the shore, Aunty 
Bell’s world ? Could they, too, run off with 
any young fellows they met, and then come 
home and be forgiven ? It was all very well 
for the captain, — he never stopped to think 
about these things, — that was his way ; but 
what was Aer duty in the matter ? Would it 
not be better in the end for Betty if she were 
made to realize her wrong-doing, and to suffer 
for it ? 

These alternating memories and perplexities 
absorbed her as she sat on the porch, the stock- 
ings in her lap, her mind first on one course of 
action and then on another, until some tone of 
Betty’s voice, or the movement of her hand, 
or the toss of her head came back, and with it 
the one intense, overwhelming desire to help 
and comfort the child she loved. 

When it began to grow dark she lighted the 
lamp in the front room, and made herself a cup 
of tea in the kitchen. Every few minutes she 
glanced at the clock, her ears alert for the 
whistle of the incoming train. Losing confi- 


192 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

dence even in the clock, she again took her 
seat on the porch, her arms on the rail, her 
plump chin resting on her hands, straining 
her eyes to see far down the road. 

When the signaling whistle of the train was 
heard, the long-drawn sound reverberating 
over the hills, she ran to the gate, and stood 
there, her apron thrown over her head. Soon 
a carriage passed, filled with summer visitors, 
their trunks piled in front, and drove on up 
the road. Then a man carrying a bag hurried 
by with two women, their arms full of bundles. 
After that the road was deserted. These ap- 
peared to be all the passengers coming her 
way. As the minutes dragged, and no sound 
of footsteps reached her ear, and no big burly 
figure with a slender girl beside it loomed 
against the dim light of the fading sky, her 
courage failed and her eyes began to grow 
moist. She saw it all now : Betty dared not 
come home and face Caleb and the others ! 

Suddenly she heard her natne called from 
inside the house, and again from the kitchen 
door. 

“ Aunty Bell ! Aunty Bell ! where be ye ? ” 

It was the captain’s voice : he must have 
left the train at the drawbridge and crossed 
lots, coming in at the rear gate. 

She hurried up the plank walk, and met him 
at the kitchen door. He was leaning against 
the jamb. It was too dark to see his face. A 


CAPTAIN JOE’S TELEGRAM 


193 


dreadful sense of some impending calamity 
overcame her. 

“Where’s Betty?” she faltered, scarcely 
able to speak. 

The captain pointed inside. 

The little woman pushed past him into the 
darkening room. For a moment she stood 
still, her eyes fixed on Betty’s slender, droop- 
ing figure and bowed head, outlined against 
the panes of the low window. 

“ Betty ! ” she cried, running forward with 
outstretched arms. 

The girl, did not move. 

“ Betty — my child ! ” Aunty Bell cried 
again, taking the weeping woman in her arms. 

Then, with smothered kisses and halting, 
broken speech, these two — the forgiving and 
the forgiven — sank to the floor. 

Outside, on a bench by the door, sat the cap- 
tain, rocking himself, bringing his hands down 
on his knees, and with every seesaw repeating 
in a low tone to himself, “ She ’s home. She ’s 
home.” 


CHAPTER XII 


CAPTAIN joe’s creed 

When Captain Joe flung open Caleb’s cabin 
door, the same cry was on his lips: “She’s 
home, Caleb, she ’s home ! Run ’way an’ lef’ 
him, jes’ ’s I knowed she would, soon ’s she 
got the spell off’n her.” 

Caleb looked up over the rim of his glasses 
into the captain’s face. He was sitting at the 
table in his shirt-sleeves and rough overalls, 
the carpet slippers on his feet. He was eating 
his supper, — the supper that he had cooked 
himself. 

“ How d’ ye know ? ” he asked. The voice did 
not sound like Caleb’s ; it was hoarse and weak. 

“ She come inter Mr. Sanford’s place night 
’fore last, scared almost to death, and he tuk 
her to them Leroy folks ; they was stavin’ 
good to her an’ kep’ ’er till mornin’, an’ tele- 
graphed me. I got the eight-ten this mornin’. 
There warn’t no time, Caleb,” — in an apolo- 
getic tone, — or I ’d sent for ye, jes’ ’s Aunty 
Bell wanted me to ; but I knowed ye ’d un- 
derstand. We jes’ got back. I ’d brought ’er 
up, only she ’s dead beat out, poor little gal.” 


CAPTAIN JOE’S CREED 


m 


It was a long answer of the captain’s to so 
direct a question, and it was made with more 
or less misgiving. It was evident from his 
manner that he was a little nervous over the 
result. He did not take his eyes from the 
diver’s face as he fired these shots at random, 
wondering where and how they would strike. 

“ Where is she now ? ” inquired Caleb quietly. 

“ Down on my kitchen floor with her head 
in Aunty Bell’s lap. Git yer hat and come 
’long.” The captain leaned over the table as 
he spoke, and rested one hand on the back of 
Caleb’s chair. 

Caleb did not raise his eyes nor move. “ I 
can’t do her no good no more, Cap’n Joe. It 
was jes’ like ye to try an’ help her. Ye ’d do 
it for anybody that was a-sufferin’ ; but I don’t 
see my way clear. I done all I could for her 
’fore she lef me, — leastwise I thought I had.” 
There was no change in the listless monotone 
of his voice. 

“You alius done by her, Caleb.” The cap- 
tain’s hand had slipped from the chair-back to 
Caleb’s shoulder. “ I know it, and she knows 
it now. She ain’t ever goin’ to forgive herself 
for the way she ’s treated ye, — tol’ me so to- 
day cornin’ up. She ’s been hoodooed, I tell 
ye, — that ’s what ’s the matter ; but she ’s come 
to now. Come along ; I ’ll git yer hat. She 
ought’er go to sleep purty soon.” 

“Ye need n’t look for my hat, Cap’n Joe. 


196 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

I ain’t a-goin’,” said Caleb quietly, leaning back 
in his chair. The lamp shone full on his face 
and beard. Captain Joe could see the deep 
lines about the eyes, seaming the dry, shrunken 
skin. The diver had grown to be a very old 
man in a week. 

‘‘You say you ain’t a-goin’, Caleb ” In his 
heart he had not expected this. 

“ No, Cap’n Joe ; I ’m goin’ to stay here an’ 
git along th’ best way I kin. I ain’t blamin’ 
Betty. I ’m blamin’ myself. I been a-thinkin’ 
it all over. She done ’er best to love me and 
do by me, but I was too old for ’er. If it 
had n’t been Billy, it would’er been somebody 
else, — somebody younger ’n me.” 

“ She don’t want nobody else but you, Caleb.” 
The captain’s voice rose quickly. He was 
crossing the room for a chair as he spoke. 
“ She told me so to-day. She purty nigh cried 
herself sick cornin’ up. I was afeard folks 
would notice her.” 

“ She ’s sorry now, cap’n, an’ wants ter come 
back, ’cause she ’s skeered of it all, but she 
don’t love me no more ’n she did when she lef 
me. When Billy finds she ’s gone, he ’ll be 
arter her agin” — 

“ Not if I git my hands on him,” interrupted 
the captain angrily, dragging the chair to Ca- 
leb’s side. 

“ An’ when she begins to hunger for him,” 
continued Caleb, taking no notice of the out- 


I 


CAPTAIN JOE’S CREED 


197 


burst, “ it ’ll be all to do over agin. She won’t 
be happy without him. I ain’t got nothin’ agin 
’er, but I won’t take ’er back. It ’ll only make 
it wus for her in the end.” 

“Ye ain’t a-goin’ ter chuck that gal out in 
the road, be ye ” cried Captain Joe, seating 
himself beside the table, his head thrust forward 
in Caleb’s face in his earnestness. “ What ’s 
she but a chit of a child that don’t know no 
better.?” he burst out. “She ain’t more ’n 
twenty now, and here ’s some on us more ’n 
twice ^r age and liable to do wus every day. 
Think of yerself when ye was her age. Do ye 
remember all the mean things ye done, and the 
lies ye told .? S’pose you ’d been chucked out 
as ye want to do to Betty. It ain’t decent for 
ye to talk so, Caleb, and I don’t like ye fur it, 
neither. She ’s a good gal, and you know it,” 
and the captain, in his restlessness, shifted the 
chair and planted it immediately in front of 
Caleb, where he could look him straight in the 
eye. Aunty Bell had told him just what Caleb 
would say, but he had not believed it possible. 

“I ain’t said she warn’t, Cap’n, Joe. I ain’t 
blamin’ her, nor never will. I ’m blamin’ my- 
self. I ought’er stayed tendin’ light-ship in- 
stead’er cornin’ ashore and spilin’ ’er life. I 
was lonely, and the fust one was alius sickly, 
an’ I thought maybe my time had come then ; 
and it did* while she was with me. I ’d ruther 
beared her a-singin’, when I come in here at 


198 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

night, than any music I ever knowed.” His 
voice broke for a moment. “ I done by her 
all I could, but I begin to see lately she was 
lonelier here with me than I was ’board ship 
with nothin’ half the time to talk to but my 
dog. I didn’t think it was Billy she wanted, 
but I see it now.” 

Captain Joe rose from his chair and began 
■ pacing the room. His onslaughts broke 
against Caleb’s indomitable will with as little 
effect as did the waves about his own feet the 
day he set the derricks. 

His faith in Betty’s coming to herself had 
never been shaken for an instant. If it had, 
it would all have been restored the morning 
she met him at Mrs. Leroy’s, and, throwing 
her arms about him, clung to him like a fright- 
ened kitten. His love for the girl was so great 
that he had seen but one side of the question. 
Her ingratitude, her selfishness in ignoring 
the disgrace and misery she would bring this 
man who had been everything to her, had held 
no place in the captain’s mind. To him the 
case was a plain one. She was young and 
foolish, and had committed a fault ; she was 
sorry and repentant ; she had run away from 
her sin ; she had come back to the one she had 
wronged, and she wanted to be forgiven. That 
was his steadfast point of view, and this was 
his creed : “ Neither do I condemn thee ; go 
and sin no more,” That Caleb did not view 


CAPTAIN JOE’S CREED 


199 


the question in the same way at first aston- 
ished, then irritated him. If she had broken 
the Master’s command again, he would perhaps 
have let her go her way, — for what was 
innately bad he hated, — but not now, when 
she had awakened to a sense of her sin. He 
continued to pace up and down Caleb’s kitchen, 
his hands behind his broad back, his horny, 
stubby fingers twisting nervously together. 
Caleb sat still in his chair, the lamplight 
streaming over his face. In all the discussion 
his voice had been one low monotone. It 
seemed but a phonographic echo of his once 
clear tones. 

The captain resumed his seat with a half- 
baffled, weary air. 

Caleb,” he said^ — there was a softness 
now in the tones of his voice that made the 
diver raise his head, — you and me hev 
knowed each other off ’n’ on for nigh on to 
twenty years. We ’ve had it thick and nasty, 
and we ’ve had as clear weather as ever a man 
sailed in. You ’ve tried to do square ’tween 
man and man, and so far ’s I know, ye have, 
and I don’t believe ye ’re goin’ to turn crooked 
now. From the time this child used to come 
down to the dock, when I fust come to work 
here, and talk to me ’tween school hours, and 
Aunty Bell would take her in to dinner, down 
to the time she got hoodooed by that smooth 
face and lyin’ tongue, — damn him ! I ’ll spile 


200 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


t’other side for him, some day, wus than the 
Screamer did, — from that time, I say, this 
’ere little gal ain’t been nothin’ but a bird 
fillin’ everything full of singin’ from the time 
she got up till she went to bed agin. I ask ye 
now, man to man, if that ain’t so ? ” 

Caleb nodded his head. 

“ During all that time there ain’t been a 
soul up and down this road, man, woman, nor 
child, that she would n’t help if she could, — 
and there ’s a blame’ sight of ’em she did help, 
as you an’ I know : sick child’en, sittin’ up with 
’em nights ; an’ makin’ bonnets for folks as 
could n’t git ’em no other way, without payin’ 
for ’em ; and doin’ all she could to make this 
place happier for her bein’ in it. Since she ’s 
been yer wife, there ain’t been a tidier nor 
nicer place along the shore road than yours, 
and there ain’t been a happier little woman 
nor home nowheres. Is that so, or not ? ” 
Again Caleb nodded his head. 

“ While all this is a-goin’ on, here comes 
that little skunk. Bill Lacey, with a tongue 
like ’n ile-can, and every time she says she ’s 
lonely or tired — and she’s had plenty of it, 
you bein’ away — he up ’s with his can and 
squirts it into ’er ear about her bein’ tied to 
an old man, and how if she ’d married him he 
would n’t ’a’ lef’ her a minute ” — 

Caleb looked up inquiringly, an ugly^gleam 
in his eyes. 


CAPTAIN JOE’S CREED 


201 


“Oh, I ketched him at it one day in my 
kitchen, and I toF him then I ’d break his 
head, and I wish to God I had, now ! Purty 
soon comes the time with the Screamer, and 
his face gets stove in. What does Betty do ? 
Leave them men to git ’long best way they 
could, — like some o’ the folks round here that 
was just as well able to ’ford the time, — or 
did she stand by and ketch a line and make 
fast } I ’ll tell ye what she done, ’cause I was 
there, and you warn’t. Fust one come ashore 
was Billy ; he looked like he ’d fallen off a top- 
gall’nt mast and struck the deck with his face. 
Lonny Bowles come next ; he warn’t so bad 
mashed up. What did Betty do ? Pick out 
the easiest one No, she jes’ anchored right 
’longside that boy, and hung on, and never had 
’er clo’es off for nigh on to forty-eight hours. If 
he ’s walkin’ round now he owes it to her. Is 
that so, or not ” 

“It’s true, cap’n,” said Caleb, his eyes fas- 
tened on the captain’s face. The lids were 
heavy now ; only his will held back the tears. 

“ For three weeks this went on, she a-settin’ 
like a little rabbit with her paws up starin’ at 
him, her eyes gettin’ bigger all the time, an’ 
he lyin’, coiled up like a snake, lookin’ up into 
her face until he ’d hoodooed her and got her 
clean off her centre. Now there ’s one thing 
I ’m a-goin’ to ask ye, an’ before I ask ye, an’ 
before ye answer it, I ’m a-goin’ to ask ye an 


202 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

other : when the Three Sisters come ashore 
on Deadman Shoal las’ winter in that sou’- 
easter, ’cause the light warn’t lit, an’ all o’ 
them men was drownded, whose fault was it ? ” 

‘•'Why, you know, Cap’n Joe,” Caleb inter- 
posed quickly, eager to defend a brother 
keeper, a pained and surprised expression over- 
spreading his face. “ Poor Charles Edwards 
had been out o’ his head for a week.” 

“ That ’s right, Caleb ; that ’s what I heard, 
an’ that ’s true, an’ the dead men and the 
owners had n’t nobody to blame, an’ did n’t. 
Now I ’ll ask ye the other question ; When 
Betty, after livin’ every day of her life as 
straight as a marlin spike, run away an’ lef’ ye 
a week ago, an’ broke up yer home, who ’s to 
blame, — Betty, or the hoodoo that ’s put ’er 
out’er her mind ever since the Screamer blowed 
up } ” 

Caleb settled back in his chair and rested 
his chin on his hand, his big fluffy beard hiding 
his wrist and shirt-cuff. For a long time he 
did not answer. The captain sat, with his 
hands on his knees, looking searchingly into 
Caleb’s face, watching every expression that 
crossed it. 

“Cap’n Joe,” said the diver in his calm, low 
voice, “ I hearn ye talk, an’ I know ye well 
’nough to know that ye believe every word ye 
say, an’ I don’t know but it ’s all true. I ain’t 
had much ’sperience o’ women folks, only two. 


203 


CAPTAIN JOE’S CREED 

But I don’t think ye git this right. It ain’t 
for myself that I ’m thinkin’. I kin git along 
alone, an’ do my own cookin’ an’ washin’ same 
as I alius used to. It ’s Betty I ’m thinkin’ of. 
She ’s tried me more ’n a year, an’ done her 
best, an’ give it up. She would n’t ’a’ been 
‘ hoodooed,’ as ye call it, by Bill Lacey if her 
own heart warn’t ready for it ’fore he began. 
It ’s agin natur’ for a gal as young ’s Betty to 
be happy with a man ’s old ’s me. She can’t 
do it, no matter how hard she tries. I did n’t 
know it when I asked her, but I see it now.” 

“ But she knows better now, Caleb ; she ain’t 
a-goin’ to cut up no more capers.” There was 
a yearning, an almost pitiful tone in the cap- 
tain’s voice. His face was close to Caleb’s. 

“Ye think so, an' maybe she won’t; but 
there ’s one thing yer don’t seem to see, Cap’n 
Joe : she can’t git out’er love with me an’ inter 
love with Billy an’ back agin to me in a week.” 

These last words came slowly, as if they had 
been dragged up out of the very depths of his 
heart. 

“ She never was out’er love with ye, Caleb, 
nor in with Lacey. Don’t I tell ye ? ” he cried 
impatiently, too absorbed in Betty’^ welfare to 
note the seriousness of Caleb’s tone. 

“Yes,” said Caleb. His voice had fallen 
almost to a whisper. “I know ye think so, 
but th’ bes’ thing now for the little gal is to 
give ’er ’er freedom, an’ let ’er go ’er way. She 


204 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


shan’t suffer as long ’s I ’ve got a dollar, but I 
won’t have ’er come home. It ’ll only break 
her heart then as well ’s mine. Now — now — 
it ’s only me — that is ” — Caleb’s head sank 
to the table until his face lay on his folded arms. 

Captain Joe rose from his chair, bent down 
and laid his hand softly on the diver’s shoulder. 
When he spoke his voice had the pleading tones 
of a girl. 

“ Caleb, don’t keep nothin’ back in yer heart ; 
take Betty home. You need n’t go down for 
her. I ’ll go myself an’ bring her here. It 
won’t be ten minutes ’fore her arms ’ll be round 
yer neck. Lemme go for her ? ” 

The diver raised his head erect, looked Cap- 
tain Joe calmly in the eye, and, without a trace 
of bitterness in his voice, said : “ She ’ll never 
set foot here as my wife agin, Cap’n Joe, as 
long ’s she lives. I ain’t got the courage to 
set still an’ see her pine away day arter day, if 
she comes back, an’ I won’t. I love ’er too 
much for tba^ . If she was my own child in- 
stead o’ my wife, I ’d say the same thing. It ’s 
Betty I ’m a-thinkin’ of, not myself. It ’d be 
twict ’s hard for ’er the next time she got tired 
an’ wanted to go. It ’s all over now, an’ she ’s 
free. Let it all stay so.” 

“Don’t say that, Caleb.” The shock of the 
refusal seemed to have stunned him. “ Don’t 
say that. Think o’ that child, Caleb : she come 
back to ye, an’ you shut your door agin ’er.” 


CAPTAIN JOE’S CREED 


2or 


Caleb shook his head, with a meaning move- 
ment that showed the iron will of the man and 
the hopelessness of further discussion. 

“ Then she ain’t good ’nough for ye, ’s that 
it?” 

The captain was fast losing his self-control. 
He knew in his heart that in these last words 
he was doing Caleb an injustice, but his anger 
got the better of him. 

Caleb did not answer. 

“That ’s it. Say it out. You don’t believe 
in her.” His voice now rang through the 
kitchen. One hand was straight up over his 
head ; his lips quivered. “Ye think she ’s some 
low-down critter instead of a poor child that 
ain’t done nobody no wrong intentional. I ask 
ye for th’ las’ time, Caleb. Be decent to yer- 
self. Be a father to ’er, if ye can’t be no more ; 
an’ if ye can’t be that, — damn ye ! — stan’ up 
an’ forgive her like a man.” 

Caleb made no sign. The cruel thrust had 
not reached his heart. He knew his friend, 
and he knew all sides of his big nature. The 
clear blue eyes still rested on the captain’s face. 

“ You won’t ? ” There was a tone almost of 
defiance in the captain’s words. 

The diver again shook his head. 

“Then I ’ll tell ye one thing, Caleb, right 
here ” (he was now bent forward, his forefinger 
in Caleb’s face straight out like a spike) : “ ye ’re 
doin’ the meanest thing I ever knowed a man 


2o6 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

to do in my whole life. I don’t like ye fur it, 
an’ I never will ’s long ’s I live. I would n’t 
serve a dog so, let alone Betty. An’ now I ’ll 
tell ye another : if she ain’t good ’nough to live 
with you, she ’s good ^nough to live with Aunty 
Bell an’ me, an’ there ’s where she ’ll stay jes’ 
’s long ’s she wants to.” 

Without a word of good-night he picked up 
his hat and strode from the room, slamming 
the door behind him with a force that rattled 
every plate on the table. 

Caleb half started from his chair as if to call 
him back. Then, with a deep indrawn sigh, he 
rose wearily from the chair, covered the smoul- 
dering fire with ashes, locked the doors, fas- 
tened the two shutters, and, taking up the 
lamp, went slowly upstairs to his empty bed. 

The following Sunday Captain Joe shaved 
himself with the greatest care, — that is, he 
slashed his face as full of cuts as a Heidelberg 
student’s after a duel ; squeezed his big broad 
shoulders into his black coat, — the one inches 
too tight across the back, the cloth all in cor- 
rugated wrinkles ; tugged at his stiff starched 
collar until his face was purple ; hauled taut a 
sleazy cravat ; and, in a determined quarter- 
deck voice rarely heard from him, ordered 
Aunty Bell to get on her best clothes, call 
Betty, and come with him. 

“ What in natur’ ’s got into ye, Cap’n Joe ” 


CAPTAIN JOE’S CREED 


207 


“ Church ’s got inter me, and you an’ Betty ’s 
goin’ along.” 

“Ye ain’t never goin’ to church, be ye.?” 
No wonder Aunty Bell was thunderstruck. 
Neither of them had been inside of a church 
since they moved to Keyport. Sunday was the 
captain’s day for getting rested, and Aunty 
Bell always helped him. 

“ I ain’t, ain’t I ? That ’s all ye know, Jane 
Bell. You git Betty an’ come along, jes’ ’s I 
tell ye. I ’m a-runnin’ this ship.” There was 
that peculiar look in the captain’s eye and tone 
in his voice that his wife knew too well. It was 
never safe to resist him in one of these moods. 

Betty burst into tears when the little woman 
told her, and said she dared not go, and 
couldn’t, until a second quick, not-to-be-ques- 
tioned order resounded up the staircase : — 

“ Here, now, that church bell ’s purty nigh 
done ringin’. We got ter git aboard ’fore the 
gangplank’s drawed in.” 

“ Come along, child,” said Aunty Bell. 
“ ’T ain’t no use ; he ’s got one o’ his spells on. 
Which church be ye goin’ to, anyway .? ” she 
called to him, as they came downstairs. 
“ Methodist or Dutch .? ” 

“Don’t make no difference, — fust one we 
come to ; an’ Betty ’s goin’ to set plumb in the 
middle ’tween you an’ me, jes’ so ’s folks kin 
see. I ain’t goin’ to have no funny business, 
nor hand-whispers, nor head-shakin’s about the 


2o8 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

little gal from nobody along this shore, from 
the preacher down, or somebody dl git hurted!” 

All through the service — he had marched 
down the middle aisle and taken the front seat 
nearest the pulpit — he sat bolt upright, like a 
corporal on guard, his eyes on the minister, 
his ears alert. Now and then he would sweep 
his glance around, meeting the wondering looks 
of the congregation, who had lost interest in 
everything about them but the three figures 
in the front pew. Then, with a satisfied air, 
now that neither the speaker nor his hearers 
showed anything but respectful curiosity, and 
no spoken word from the pulpit bore the remot- 
est connection with the subject uppermost in 
his mind, — no Magdalens nor Prodigal Sons, 
nor anything of like significance (there is no 
telling what would have happened had there 
been), — he settled himself again, and looked 
straight at the minister. 

When the benediction had been pronounced 
he waited until the crowd got thickest around 
the door, — he knew why the congregation 
lagged behind ; then he made his way into its 
midst, holding Betty by the arm as if she had 
been under arrest. Singling out old Captain 
Potts, a retired sea-captain, a great church- 
goer and something of a censor over the morals 
of the community, he tapped him on the shoul- 
der, and said in a voice loud enough to be 
heard by everybody : — 


CAPTAIN JOE’S CREED 


209 


This is our little gal, Betty West, Cap’n 
Potts. Caleb ’s gin her up, and she ’s come 
to live with us. When ye 're passin’ our way 
with yer folks, it won’t do ye no harm to stop 
in to see her.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


A SHANTY DOOR 

Sanford had expected, when he led Betty 
from his door, that Mrs. Leroy would give her 
kindly shelter, but he had not been prepared 
for all that he heard the next day. Kate had not 
only received the girl into her house, but had 
placed her for the night in a bedroom adjoin- 
ing her own ; arranging the next morning a 
small table in her dressing-room where Betty 
could breakfast alone, free from the pryings 
of inquisitive servants. Mrs. Leroy told all 
these things to Sanford : describing the heart- 
broken weariness of the girl when she arrived ; 
the little joyful cry she gave when big, burly 
Captain Joe, his eyes blinded by the hot mid- 
day glare outside, came groping his way into 
the darkened boudoir ; and Betty’s glad spring 
into his arms, where she lay while the captain 
held her with one hand, trying to talk to both 
Betty and herself at once, the tears rolling 
down his cheeks, his other great hand with the 
thole-pin fingers patting the girl’s tired face. 
Mrs. Leroy told Sanford all these things and 
more, but she did not say how she herself had 


A SHANTY DOOR 


2II 


sat beside Betty on the divan that same morn- 
ing, before Captain Joe arrived, winning little 
by little the girl’s confidence, until the whole 
story came out. Neither did she tell him with 
what tact and gentleness she, the woman of 
the world, whose hours of loneliness had been 
more bitter and intense than any that Betty 
ever knew, had shown this inexperienced girl 
how much more noble it would have been to 
suffer and stand firm, doing and being the 
right, than to succumb as she had done. Nor 
yet did she tell Sanford how Betty’s mind had 
cleared, as she talked on, and of the way in 
which the girl’s brown hand had crept toward 
her own till it nestled among her jeweled fin- 
gers, while with tender words of worldly wis- 
dom she had prepared her foster sister for 
what she still must face in penance for her 
sin ; instructing her in the use of those wea- 
pons of self-control, purity of purpose, and pa- 
tience, with which she must arm herself if she 
would win the struggle. Nor how, before the 
morning hours were gone, she had received the 
girl’s promise to go back to her home, and, if 
her husband would not receive her, to fight on 
until she again won for herself the respect she 
had lost, and among those, too, who had once 
loved her. Least of all did she tell Sanford 
that when the talk was over and Betty was 
gone, she had thrown herself on her own bed 
in an agony of tears, wondering after all which 


212 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

one of the two had done the better for herself 
in the battle of life, — she or the girl. 

Sanford knew nothing of this. As he sat 
in the train, on his way back to Keyport, his 
heart had gone out to the girl, for he had been 
greatly wrought up by the story Kate told him 
and by the pictures she had given of the inter- 
view. Yet, strange to say, he found himself 
bewildered by the fact that, even more than 
the story, he remembered the tones of Kate’s 
voice and the very color of her eyes as she 
talked. He was constantly seeing, too, as he 
lingered over its details, a vision of Kate her- 
self as she stood in the hall and bade him 
good-by, — her full white throat above the ruf- 
fles of her morning-gown. As he rode on, he 
found it difficult to turn his mind to other 
things, or to quiet his inner enthusiasm for her 
gentleness and charity. 

And yet there were important affairs to 
which he owed immediate attention. Carle- 
ton’s continued refusal to sign a certificate for 
the concrete disk, without which no payment 
would be made by the government, would, if 
persisted in, cause him serious embarrassment. 
The difficulty with Carleton had already 
reached an acute stage. Captain Joe had alto- 
gether failed in his efforts to make the superin- 
tendent sign the certificate, and Carleton had 
threatened to wire the Department and de- 
mand a board of survey if his orders were not 


A SHANTY DOOR 


213 


complied with at once. The captain generally 
retired from the field and left the campaign to 
Sanford whenever, in the course of their work, 
it became necessary to fight the United States 
government — the sea was his enemy. 

In this discussion, however, he had taken 
the pains to explain to Carleton patiently, and 
bethought intelligently, the falsity of the stand 
he took, showing him that his idea about the 
concrete base being too low was the result of 
a mere optical illusion, due to the action of the 
tide which backed the water up higher within 
the breakwater on the southeast side ; that 
when the first course of masonry was laid, 
bringing the mass of concrete out of water, 
his — Carleton’s — mistake would be instantly 
detected. 

Captain Joe was as much out of patience as 
he ever permitted himself to be with Carleton, 
when he shook Sanford’s hand on his arrival. 

‘‘Ain’t no man on earth smart ’nough to 
make eleven inches a foot, let alone a critter 
like him ! ” he said, as he explained the latest 
development. 

Once over the sloop’s side, Sanford laid his 
bag on the deck and turned to the men. 

“ Who saw the concrete at dead low water 
during that low tide we had after the last 
northwest blow ? ” he inquired. 

“ I did, sir,” answered Captain Brandt. “ I 
told Mr. Carleton he was wrong. The water 


214 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

jes’ tetched the outer iron band all round when 
I see it. It was dead calm ah’ dead low water.” 

‘‘ What do you say to that, Mr. Carleton ? ” 
asked Sanford, laughing. 

“ I ’m not here to take no back talk from 
nobody,” replied Carleton in a surly tone. 

Lonny,” said Sanford, — he saw that fur- 
ther discussion with the superintendent was 
useless, — ‘‘ go ashore and get my transit and 
target 'rod ; you ’ll find them in my bedroom 
at the captain’s ; and please put them here in 
the skipper’s bunk, so they won’t get broken. 
I ’ll run a level on the concrete myself, Mr. 
Carleton, when we get to the Ledge.” 

“ There ain’t no use of your transit,” retorted 
Carleton, with a sneer. “ It ’s six inches too 
low, I tell you. You ’ll fix it as I want it, or I ’ll 
stop the work.” 

Sanford looked at him, but held his peace. 
It had not been his first experience with men 
of Carleton’s class. He proposed, all the same, 
to know for himself who was right. He had 
seen Carleton use a transit, and had had a dim 
suspicion at the time that the superintendent 
was looking through the eyepiece while it was 
closed. 

“ Get ready for the Ledge, Captain Brandt, 
as soon as Lonny returns,” said Sanford. 
“Where’s Caleb, Captain Joe We may 
want him.” 

The captain touched Sanford on the shoul- 


A SHANTY DOOR 


215 


der and moved down the deck with him, where 
he stood behind one of the big stones, out of 
hearing of the other men. 

‘‘ He ’s all broke up, sir. He ain’t been to 
work since the little gal left. I want to thank 
ye, Mr. Sanford, for what ye did for ’er ; and 
that friend o’ yourn could n’t ’a’ been no better 
to her if she’d been her sister.” 

“ Oh, that ’s all right, captain,” said Sanford, 
laying a hand on his shoulder. Betty is at 
your house, I hear. How does she bear it ? ” 

‘‘ Gritty as she kin be, but she ain’t braced 
up much ; Aunty Bell ’s got ’er arms round 
’er most of the time. I wish you ’d send for 
Caleb; nothin’ else ’ll bring him out. He 
won’t come for me. I ’ll go for him myself, if 
ye say so.” 

“ Go get him. I may want him to hold a rod 
in four or five feet of water. He won’t need 
his helmet, but he ’ll need his dress. Do you 
hear anything about Lacey ? ” 

“ He ain’t been round where any of us could 
see him — and git hold of him,” answered Cap- 
tain Joe, knitting his brows. “ I jes’ wish he ’d 
come once. I beared he was over to Stonin’- 
ton, workin’ on the railroad.” 

The captain jumped into the yawl and sculled 
away toward the diver’s cabin. He had not 
felt satisfied with himself since the night when 
Caleb had refused to take Betty back. He had 
said then, in the heat of the moment, some 


2i6 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

things which had hurt him as much as they had 
hurt Caleb. He would have told him so before, 
but he had been constantly at the Ledge re- 
ceiving the big cut stones for the masonry, nine 
of which were then piled up on the Screamer’s 
deck. After that there had arisen the difficulty 
with Carleton. This now was his opportunity. 

The men on the sloop, somehow, knew Caleb 
was coming, and there was more or less curi- 
osity to see him. Nickles, standing inside the 
galley and within earshot, had probably over- 
heard Sanford’s request. 

All the men liked the old diver. His cour- 
age, skill, and many heroic acts above and 
under water had earned their respect, while 
his universal kindness and cheeriness had won 
their confidence. The calamity that had over- 
taken him had been discussed and re-discussed ; 
and while many hopes were indulged in regard- 
ing the future condition of Lacey’s soul and 
the present state of his eyes, profane hopes 
that would have interfered seriously with the 
eternal happiness of the first and the seeing 
qualities of the second, and while numerous 
criticisms were as freely passed upon Betty, 
nothing but kindness and sympathy was felt 
for Caleb. 

When Caleb came up over the sloop’s rail, 
followed by Captain Joe, it was easy to see that 
all was right between him and the captain. One 
hearty handshake inside the cabin’s kitchen, and 


A SHANTY DOOR 


217 


a frank outspoken “ I ’m sorry, Caleb ; don’t lay 
it up agin me,” had done that. When Caleb 
spoke to the men, in his usual gentle manner, 
each one of them said or did some little thing, 
as chance offered an unobtrusive opportunity, 
that conveyed to the diver a heartfelt sorrow 
for his troubles, — every one but Carleton, who 
purposely, perhaps, had gone down into the 
cabin, his temper still ruffled over his encounter 
with Captain Joe and Sanford. 

And so Caleb once more took his place on 
the working force. 

As the Screamer rounded to and made fast 
in the eddy, the Ledge gang were engaged in 
using the system of derricks, which since the 
final anchoring had never needed an hour’s 
additional work. They were moving back from 
the landing-wharf the big cut stones required 
to lay the first course of masonry, the work to 
begin as soon as the controversy over the 
proper level of the concrete was settled. 

With the making fast of the Screamer to the 
floating buoys in the eddy, the life-boat from 
the Ledge pulled alongside, and landed Sanford, 
Carleton, Captain Joe, Caleb, and the skipper, 
— Lonny Bowles carrying the transit and rod 
as carefully as if. they had been two long icicles. 
When the party reached the Ledge the concrete 
was found to be awash with three feet of water ; 
nothing of the mass itself could be seen by 
the naked eye. It was therefore apparent that 


2i8 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

if the dispute was to be settled it could be 
done only by a series of exact measurements. 
Carleton showed every evidence of satisfaction. 
He had begun to suspect he might be wrong, 
but his obstinacy sustained him. Now that 
the disk was covered with water there was still 
reason for dispute. 

Caleb squeezed himself into his diving-dress, 
and began operations, Captain Joe fastening 
the water-tight cuffs over his wrists, leaving 
his hands free. The diver then picked up the 
rod with its adjustable target and plunged 
across the shallow basin, the water coming up 
to his hips. Sanford meanwhile arranged the 
tripod on the platform, leveled his instrument, 
directing Caleb where to hold the rod, and be- 
gan his survey. Captain Joe stood one side 
recording his findings with a big blue lead pen- 
cil on a short strip of plank. 

The first entries showed that the two seg- 
ments of the circle — the opposite segments, 
southeast and northwest — varied barely three 
tenths of an inch in height. This, of course, 
was immaterial over so large a surface. The 
result proved conclusively that Carleton’ s claim 
that one section of the concrete was six inches 
too low was absurd. 

I ’m afraid I shall have to decide against 
you this time, Mr. Carleton,” said Sanford 
pleasantly. “ Run your eye through this tran- 
sit ; you can see yourself what it shows.” 


A SHANTY DOOR 


219 


“ Right or wrong/’ broke out Carleton, now 
thoroughly angry, both over his defeat and at 
the half-concealed, jeering remarks of the men, 
it ’s got to go up six inches, or not a cut 
stone will be laid. That ’s what I ’m here for, 
and what I sdiy goesJ' 

“But please take the transit and see for 
yourself, Mr. Carleton,” urged Sanford. 

“ I don’t know nothin’ about yotcr transit, 
nor who fixed it to suit you,” snarled Carleton. 

Sanford bit his lip, and made no answer. 
There were more important things to be done 
in the building of a light than the resenting 
of such insults or quarreling with a superin- 
tendent. The skipper, however, to whom the 
superintendent was a first experience, and who 
took his answer as in some way a reflection on 
his own veracity, walked quickly toward him 
with his fist tightly clinched. His big frame 
towered over Carleton’s. 

“ Thank you. Captain Brandt,” said Sanford, 
noticing the skipper’s expression and intent. 
“ But Mr. Carleton is n’t in earnest. His tran- 
sit is not here, and we cannot tell who fixed 
that.” 

The men laughed, and the skipper stoppeii 
and stood aside, awaiting any further devel- 
opments that might require his aid. 

“In view of these measurements,” asked 
Sanford, as he held before Carleton’s eyes the 
piece of plank bearing Captain Joe’s record. 


220 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“do you still order the six inches of concrete 
put in ? ” 

“Certainly I do,” said Carleton. His ugly 
temper was gradually being hidden under an 
air of authority. Sanford’s tact had regained 
him a debating position. 

“ And you take the responsibility of the 
change ? ” 

“ I do,” replied Carleton in a blustering 
voice. 

“Then please put that order in writing,” 
said Sanford quietly, “and I will see it done 
as soon as the tide lowers.” 

Carleton’s manner changed ; he saw the pit 
that lay before him. If he were wrong, the 
written order would fix his responsibility ; 
without that telltale record he could deny af- 
terward having given the order, if good policy 
so demanded. 

“ Well, that ain’t necessary ; you go ahead,” 
said Carleton, with less vehemence. 

“I think it is, Mr. Carleton. You ask me 
to alter a bench-mark level which I know to 
be right, and which every man about us knows 
to be right. You refuse a written certificate 
if I do not carry out your orders, and yet you 
expect me to commit this engineering crime 
because of your personal opinion, — an opinion 
which you now refuse to back up by your sig- 
nature.” 

“ I ain’t given you a single written order 


A SHANTY DOOR 


221 


this season : why should I now ? ” in an eva- 
sive tone. 

“ Because up to this time you have asked 
for nothing unreasonable. Then you refuse ^ ” 

“ I do, and I ’m not to be bulldozed, neither.” 

“ Caleb,” said Sanford, with the air of a man 
who had made up his mind, raising his voice to 
the diver, still standing in the water, “ put that 
rod on the edge of the iron band.” 

Caleb felt around under the water with his 
foot, found the band, and placed on it the end 
of the rod. Sanford carefully adjusted the in- 
strument. 

What does it measure } ” 

‘‘Thirteen feet six inches, sir!” shouted 
Caleb. 

“ Lonny Bowles,” continued Sanford, “take 
three or four of the men and go along the 
breakwater and see if Caleb is right.” 

The men scrartibled over the rocks, Lonny 
plunging into the water beside Caleb, so as to 
get closer to the rod. 

“ Thirteen feet six inches I ” came back the 
voices of Lonny and the others, sp aking suc- 
cessively. 

“Now, Captain Joe, look through this eye- 
piece and see if you find the red quartered tar- 
get in the centre of the spider-web lines. You, 
too, skipper.” 

The men put their eyes to the glass, each 
announcing that he saw the red of the disk. 


222 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“Now, Caleb, make your way across to the 
northwest derrick, and hold the rod on the 
band there.” 

The old diver waded across the concrete, 
and held the rod and target over his head.* 
The men followed him around the breakwater, 

— all except Bowles, who, being as wet as he 
could be, plunged in waist-deep. 

Sanford turned the transit without disturb- 
ing the tripod, and adjusted it until the lens 
covered the target. 

“ Raise it a little, Caleb ! ” shouted Sanford, 

— “ so ! What is she now ” 

“ Thirteen feet six inches and — a — half ! ” 

“ Right ! How is it, men ? ” 

“ Thirteen six and a half ! ” came back the 
replies, after each man had assured himself. 

“Now bring me a clean, dry plank, Captain 
Joe,” said Sanford. “That’s too small,” as 
the captain held out the short piece containing 
the record. Clean planks were scarce on the 
cement-stained work ; dry ones were never 
found. 

Everybody went in search of a suitable 
plank. Carleton looked on at this pantomime 
with a curl on his lips, and now and then a 
little shiver of uncertain fear creeping over 
him. Sanford’s quiet, determined manner puz- 
zled him. 

“ What ’s all this circus about ? ” he broke 
out impatiently. 


A SHANTY DOOR 


223 


'‘One minute, Mr. Carleton. I want to 
make a record which will be big enough for 
the men to sign ; one that won’t get astray, 
lost, or stolen.” 

“ What ’s the matter with this ? ” asked 
Captain Joe, opening the wooden door of the 
new part of the shanty. “Ye can’t lose this 
’less ye take away the house.” 

“ That ’s the very thing ! ” exclaimed San- 
ford. “ Swing her wide open, Captain Joe. 
Please give me that big blue pencil.” 

When the door flew back it was as white 
and clean as a freshly scrubbed pine table. 

Sanford wrote as follows : — 

August 29, Shark Ledge Light. 

We, the undersigned, certify that the con- 
crete disk is perfectly level except opposite the 
northwest derrick, where it is three tenths 
of an inch too high. We further certify that 
Superintendent Carleton orders the concrete 
raised six inches on the southeast segment, 
and refuses to permit any cut stone to be 
set until this is done. 

Henry Sanford, Contractor. 

“Come, Captain Joe,” said Sanford, “put 
your signature under mine.” 

The captain held the pencil in his bent fin- 
gers as if it had been a chisel, and inscribed 
his full name, “Joseph Bell,” under that of 


224 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Sanford. Then Caleb and the others fol- 
lowed, the diver fumbling inside his dress for 
his glasses, the search proving fruitless until 
Captain Joe ran his arm down between the 
rubber collar of the diving-dress and Caleb’s 
red shirt and drew them up from inside his 
undershirt. 

'‘Now, Captain Joe,” said Sanford, "you 
can send a gang in the morning at low water 
and raise that concrete. It will throw the 
upper masonry out of level, but it won’t make 
much difference in a circle of this size.” 

The men gave a cheer, the humor of the 
situation taking possession of every one. Even 
Caleb forgot his sorrow for a moment. Carle- 
ton laughed a little halting laugh himself, but 
there was nothing of spontaneity in it. Nickles, 
the cook, who, now that the cut stone was 
about to be laid, was permanently transferred 
from the Screamer to the shanty, and under 
whose especial care this door was placed by 
reason of its position, — it opened into the 
kitchen, — planted his fat, oily body before the 
curious record, read it slowly word for word, 
and delivered himself of this opinion : " That 
’ere door ’s th’ biggest receipt for stores I ever 
see come into a kitchen.” 

" Big or little,” said Captain Joe, who could 
not see the drift of most of Nickles’s jokes, 
" you spatter it with yer grease or spile it any, 
and ye go ashore.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


TWO ENVELOPES 

Betty’s flight had been of such short dura- 
tion, and her return home accomplished under 
such peculiar circumstances, that the stories 
in regard to her elopement had multiplied with 
the hours. One feature of her escapade ex- 
cited universal comment, — her spending the 
night at Mrs. Leroy’s. The only explanation 
that could be given of this extraordinary ex- 
perience was that so high a personage as Mrs. 
Leroy must have necessarily been greatly im- 
posed upon by Betty, or she could never have 
disgraced herself and her home by giving 
shelter to such a woman. 

Mrs. Leroy’s hospitality to Betty inspired 
another theory, — one that, not being contra- 
dicted at the moment of its origin by Aunty 
Bell, had seemed plausible. Miss Peebles, the 
schoolmistress, who never believed ill of any- 
body, lent all her aid to its circulation. The 
conversation out of which the theory grew 
took place in Aunty Bell’s kitchen. Betty was 
upstairs in her room, and the talk went on in 
lowered tones, lest she should overhear. 


226 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ I never shall believe that a woman holding 
Mrs. Leroy’s position would take Betty West 
into her house if she knew what kind of a 
woman she was,” remarked the elder Miss 
Nevins. 

“ And that makes me think there ’s some 
mistake about this whole thing,” said Miss 
Peebles. “ Who saw her with Lacey, anyhow } 
Nobody but the butcher, and he don’t know 
half the time what he ’s talking about, he fat- 
ties on so. Maybe she never went with Lacey 
at all.” 

“What did she go ’way for, then ? ” asked 
the younger Nevins girl, who was on her way 
to the store, and had stopped in, hoping she 
might, by chance, get a look at Betty. “ I 
guess Lacey’s money was all gone — that ’s 
why she imposed on Mrs. Leroy.” 

“ I don’t believe it,” said Miss Peebles. 
“ Betty may have been foolish, but she never 
told a lie in her life.” 

“ Well, it may be,” admitted the younger 
sister in a softened tone. “I hope so, any- 
how.” 

Aunty Bell kept still. Betty was having 
trouble enough ; if the neighbors thought her 
innocent, and would give her the benefit of the 
doubt, better leave it so. There were one or 
two threads of worldly wisdom and canny policy 
twisted about the little woman’s heart which 
now and then showed their ends. 


TWO ENVELOPES 


227 


Captain Joe was in the sitting-room, reading. 
He had come in from the Ledge, wet, as usual, 
had put on some dry clothes, and while wait- 
ing for supper had picked up the “Noank 
Times.” Aunty Bell and the others saw him 
come in, but thought he had changed his 
clothes and had gone to the dock. 

He had overheard every word of the discus- 
sion. There were no raveled threads in the 
captain’s make-up. He threw down his paper, 
pushed his way into the group, and said : — 

“ There ’s one thing I don’t want no mistake 
over, and I won’t have it. Betty did n’t tell no 
lies to Mrs. Leroy nor to nobody else, an’ I 
ain’t a-goin’ to have nobody lie for ’er. Mrs. 
Leroy knows all about it. She took care of 
her ’cause she ’s got a heart inside of her. 
Betty went off with Bill Lacey ’cause he ’d 
hoodooed ’er, an’ when she come to herself she 
come home agin : that ’s all ther’ is to that. 
She ’s sorry for what she ’s done, an’ ther’ ain’t 
nobody outside o’ heaven can do more. She ’s 
goin’ to stay here ’cause me and Aunty Bell 
love her now more ’n we ever did before. But 
she ’s goin’ to start life agin fair an’ square, 
with no lies of her own an’ no lies told about 
’er by nobody else.” The captain looked at 
Aunty Bell. ‘‘Them that don’t like it can 
lump it. Them as don’t like Betty after this 
can stay away from me,” and he turned about 
on his heel and went down to the dock. 


228 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Two currents had thus been started in 
Betty’s favor : one the outspoken indorsement 
of Captain Joe ; and the other the protection 
of Mrs. Leroyj “the rich lady who lived at 
Medford, in that big country-seat where the 
railroad crossed, and who had the yacht and 
horses, and who must be a good woman, or 
she would n’t have come to nurse the men, 
or sent them delicacies, and who came herself 
to put up the mosquito-nets over their cots.” 

As the August days slipped by and the early 
autumn came, the gossip gradually died. Caleb 
continued to live alone, picking up once more 
the manner of life he had practiced for years 
aboard the light-ship : having a day every two 
weeks for his washing, — always Sunday, when 
the neighbors would see him while on their way 
to church, — hanging out his red and white 
collection on the line stretched in the garden. 
He cooked his meals and cleaned the house 
himself. Nobody but Captain Joe and Aunty 
Bell crossed his threshold, except the butcher 
who brought him his weekly supplies. He 
had been but seldom to the village in the day- 
time, — somehow he did not like to pass Cap- 
tain Joe’s when any one could see him, — and 
had confined his outings to going from the 
cabin to the Ledge and back again as his duties 
required, locking the rear door and hanging 
the key on a nail beside it until his return. 

He had seen Betty only once, and that was 


TWO ENVELOPES 


229 


when he had passed her on the road. He came 
upon her suddenly, ,and he thought she started 
back as if to avoid him, but he kept his eyes 
turned away anct passed on. When he reached 
the hill and looked back he could see her sit- 
ting by the side of the road, a few rods from 
where they met, her head resting on her hand. 

Only one man had dared to speak to him in 
an unsympathetic way about Betty’s desertion, 
and that was his old friend Tony Marvin, the 
keeper of Keyport Light. They had been to- 
gether a year on Bannock Rip during the time 
the Department had doubled up the keepers. 
He had not heard of Caleb’s trouble until sev- 
eral weeks after Betty’s flight ; lighthouse-keep- 
ers staying pretty close indoors. 

“ I hearn, Caleb, that the new wife left ye 
for that young rigger what got his face smashed. 
’Most too young, warn’t she, to be stiddy ? ” 

“ No, I ain’t never thought so,” replied Caleb 
quietly. “ Were n’t no better gal ’n Betty ; she 
done all she knowed how. You ’d ’a’ said so if 
ye knowed her like I did. But ’t was agin natur’, 
I bein’ so much older. But I ’d rather had her 
go than suffer on.” 

“Served ye durn mean, anyhow,” said the 
keeper. “ Did she take anything with ’er ? ” 

“ Nothin’ but the clo’es she stood in. But 
she did n’t serve me mean, Tony. I don’t want 
ye to think so, an’ I don’t want ye to say so, 
nor let nobody say so, neither ; an’ ye won’t 


230 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

if you ’re a friend o’ mine, which you allers 
was.” 

‘‘ I hearn there was some talk o’ yer takin’ 
her back,” the keeper went on in a gentler tone, 
surprised at Caleb’s blindness, and anxious to 
restore his good feeling. “ Is that so ” 

“No, that ain’t so,” Caleb answered firmly, 
ending the conversation on that topic and lead- 
ing it into other channels. 

This interview of the light-keeper’s was soon 
public property. Some of those who heard of 
it set Caleb down as half-witted over his loss, 
and others wondered how long it would be be- 
fore he would send for Betty and patch it all 
up again, and still others questioned why he 
did n’t go over to Stonington and smash the 
other side of Lacey’s face ; they heard that 
Billy had been seen around there. 

As for Betty, she had found work with a 
milliner on the edge of the village, within a 
mile of Captain Joe’s cottage, where her taste 
in trimming bonnets secured her ready employ- 
ment, and where her past was not discussed. 
That she was then living with Captain Joe and 
his wife was enough to gain her admission. 

There had been days, however, after her 
return, when she would have given way under 
the strain, had it not been for her remembered 
promise to Mrs. Leroy, — the only woman, ex- 
cept Aunty Bell, who had befriended her, — 
and for the strong supporting arm of Captain 


TWO ENVELOPES 


231 


Joe, who never lost an opportunity to show his 
confidence in her. i 

And yet in spite of these promises and sup- 
ports she could have plunged into the water 
many a time at the end of the dock and ended 
it all. She would sit for hours in her little 
room next Aunty Bell’s, on Saturday afternoons, 
when she came earlier from work, and watch 
for the Screamer or one of the tugs to round 
in, bringing Caleb and the men. She could 
not see her own cottage from the window where 
she sat, but she could see her husband come 
down the sloop’s side and board the little boat 
that brought him to his landing. She would 
often think that she could catch his good-night 
as he pushed off. On Monday mornings, too, 
when she knew he was going out, she was up 
at daylight, watching for a meagre glimpse of 
him when the skiff shot out from behind the 
dock and took him aboard to go to his work on 
the Ledge. 

Little by little the captain’s devotion to 
Betty’s interests, and the outspoken way in 
which he praised her efforts to maintain her- 
self, began to have their effect. People who 
had passed her by without a word, as they met 
her on the road, volunteered a timid good-morn- 
ing, which was answered by a slight nod of the 
head by Betty. Even one of the Nevins girls 
• — the younger one — had joined her and 
walked as far as the milliner’s, with a last word 


232 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

on the doorstep, which had detained them both 
for at least two minutes in full sight of the 
other girls who were passing the shop. 

Betty met all advances kindly, but with a 
certain reserve of manner. She appreciated 
the good motive, but in her own eyes it did 
not palliate her fault, — that horrible crime of 
ingratitude, selfishness, and waywardness, the 
memory of which hung over her night and day 
like a pall. 

Most of her former acquaintances respected 
her reserve, — all except Carleton. Whenever 
he met her under Captain Joe’s roof he greeted 
her with a nod, but on the road he had more 
than once tried to stop and talk to her. At 
first the attempt had been made with a lifting 
of the hat and a word about the weather, but 
the last time he had stopped in front of her 
and tried to take her hand. 

“ What ’s the matter with you ? ” he said in 
a coaxing tone. “I ain’t going to hurt you.” 

Betty darted by him, and reached the shop 
all out of breath. She said nothing to any 
one about her encounter, not being afraid of 
him in the daytime, and not wanting her affairs 
talked of any more. 

If Caleb knew how Betty lived, he never 
mentioned it to Captain Joe or Aunty Bell. 
He would sometimes ask after her health and 
whether she was working too hard, but never 
more than that. 


TWO ENVELOPES 


233 


One Saturday night — it was the week 
Betty had hurt her foot and could not go to 
the shop — Caleb came down to Captain Joe’s 
and called him outside the kitchen door. It 
was pay-day with the men, and Caleb had in 
his hand the little envelope, still unopened, 
containing his month’s pay. The lonely life 
he led had begun to tell upon the diver. The 
deathly pallor that had marked his face the 
first few days after his wife’s departure was 
gone, and the skin was no longer shrunken, 
but the sunken cheeks remained, and the rest- 
less, eager look in the eyes that told of his 
mental strain. 

Caleb was in his tarpaulins ; it was raining 
at the time. 

“ Come in, Caleb, come in ! ” cried Captain 
Joe in a cheery voice, laying his hand on the 
diver’s shoulder. “Take off yer ileskins.” 
The captain never despaired of bringing hus- 
band and wife together, somehow. 

Betty was sitting inside the kitchen, reading 
by the kerosene lamp, out of sound of the 
voices. 

“No, I ain’t washed up nor had supper yit, 
thank ye. I beared from Aunty Bell that 
Betty was laid up this week, an’ so I come 
down.” Here Caleb stopped, and began slit- 
ting the pay-envelope with a great thumb-nail 
shaped like a half-worn shoe-horn. “ I come 
down, thinkin’ maybe you ’d kind’er put this 


234 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

where she could git it,” slowly unrolling two of 
the four bills and handing them to the captain. 
“ I don’t like her to be beholden to ye for board 
nor nothin’.” 

“Ye can’t give me a cent, Caleb. I knowed 
her ’fore you did,” said the captain, protesting 
with his hand upraised, a slightly indignant 
tone in his voice. Then a thought crept into 
his mind. “ Come in and give it to her yer- 
self, Caleb,” putting his arm through the 
diver’s. 

“ No,” said Caleb slowly, “ I ain’t come 
here for that, and I don’t want ye to make no 
mistake, cap’n. I come here ’cause I been 
a-thinkin’ it over, and somehow it seems to 
me that half o’ this is hern. I don’t want ye 
to tell ’er that I give it to her, ’cause it ain’t 
so. I jes’ want ye to lay it som’eres she ’ll 
find it ; and when she asks about it, say it ’s 
hern.” 

Captain Joe crumpled the bills in his hand. 

“Caleb,” he said, “I ain’t goin’ to say 
nothin’ more to ye. I ’ve said all I could, and 
las’ time I said too much ; but what seems to 
me to be the cussedest foolishness out is for 
ye to go back an’ git yer supper by yerself, 
when the best little gal you or I know is 
a-settin’ within ten feet o’ ye with her heart 
breakin’ to git to ye.” 

“I’m sorry she’s sufferin’, Cap’n Joe. I 
don’t like to see nobody suffer, leastways 


TWO ENVELOPES 


235 


Betty, but ye don’t know it all. Jes’ leave 
them bills as I asked ye. Tell Aunty Bell I 
got the pie she sent me when I come home, — 
I ’ll eat it to-morrow. I s’pose ye ain’t got no 
new orders ’bout that last row of enrockment ? 
I set the bottom stone to-day, an’ I ought’er 
get the last of ’em finished nex’ week. The 
tide cut turrible to-day, an’ my air cornin’ so 
slow through the pump threw me ’mong the 
rocks an’ seaweed, an’ I got a scrape on my 
hand,” showing a deep cut on its back ; “ but 
it ’s done hurtin’ now. Good-night.” 

On his way home, just before he reached 
his cabin, Caleb came upon Bert Simmons, the 
shore road letter-carrier, standing in the road, 
under one of the village street lamps, overhaul- 
ing his package of letters. 

“ About these letters that ’s cornin’ for yer 
wife, Caleb ? Shall I leave ’em with you or 
take ’em down to Cap’n Joe Bell’s ^ I give 
the others to her. Here ’s one now.” 

Caleb took the letter mechanically, looked 
it over slowly, noted its Stonington postmark, 
and, handing it back, answered calmly, ‘‘ Better 
leave ’em down to Cap’n Joe’s, Bert.” 


CHAPTER XV 


A NARROW PATH 

When Sanford, after dining, rang her bell, 
Mrs. Leroy was seated on the veranda that 
overlooked the garden, — a wide and inviting 
veranda, always carpeted in summer with mats 
and rugs, and made comfortable with cane 
chairs and straw divans that were softened into 
luxurious delights by silk cushions. During 
the day the sunshine filtered its way between the 
thickly matted vines, lying in patterns on the 
floor, or was held in check by thin Venetian 
blinds. At night the light of a huge eight- 
sided lantern festooned with tassels shed its 
glow through screens of colored gauze. 

Mrs. Leroy was dressed in a simple gown of 
white crepe, which clung and wrinkled about 
her slight figure, leaving her neck and arms 
bare. On a low table beside her rested a silver 
tray with a slender-shaped coffee-pot and tiny 
egg-shell cups and saucers. 

She looked up at him, smiling, as he pushed 
aside the curtains. “ Two lumps, Henry ? ” she 
called, holding the sugar-tongs in her hand. 
Then, as the light of the lantern fell upon his 


A NARROW PATH 


237 


face, she exclaimed, Why, what ’s the matter ? 
You are worried : is there fresh trouble at the 
Ledge ? ” and she rose from her chair. 

‘‘ No ; only Carleton,” he replied, looking down 
at her. ‘‘He holds on to that certificate, and 
I can get no money until he gives it up ; yet I 
have raised the concrete six inches to please 
him. I wired Captain Joe yesterday to see him 
at once and to get his answer, — yes or no. 
What do you suppose he replied.? ‘Tell him 
he don’t own the earth. I ’ll sign it when I 
get to it.’ Not another word, nor would he 
give any reason for not signing it.” 

“ Why don’t you appeal to the Board .? Gen- 
eral Barton would not see you suffer an unjust 
delay. I ’ll write him myself,” she said, sitting 
bolt upright on the divan. 

Sanford smiled. Her rising anger soothed 
him as flattery might have done at another time. 
He felt in it a proof of how close to her heart 
she really held his interests and his happiness. 

“That would only prolong the agony, and 
might lose us the season’s work. The Board is 
always fair and honest, only it takes so long for 
it to move.” As he spoke he piled the cush- 
ions high behind her head, and drew a low 
chair opposite to her. “ It ’s torture to a con- 
tractor who is behind time,” he continued, fleck- 
ing the ashes of his cigar into his saucer. “It 
means getting all tangled up in the red tape 
of a government bureau. I must give up my 


238 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

holiday and find Carleton ; there is nothing else 
to be done now. I leave on the early train 
to-morrow. But what a rest this is ! ” he ex- 
claimed, breaking into the strained impetuosity 
of his own tones with a long-drawn sigh of 
relief, as he looked about the dimly lighted 
veranda. ^‘Nothing like it anywhere.” 

As he spoke his eyes wandered over her 
dainty figure, half reclining before him, — the 
delicately modeled waist, the shapely wrists, and 
the tiny slippers peeping beneath the edge of 
her dress that fell in folds to the floor. “ An- 
other new gown, I see ? ” 

“ Never mind about my gown. I want to hear 
more about this man Carleton,” she said. Her 
face was alight with the pleasure of his tribute, 
but she spoke as though she had hardly heard 
it. What have you done to him to make him 
hate you ” 

Nothing but try to keep him from ruining 
the work.” 

“ And you told him he was ruining it ” 

“ Certainly ; there was nothing else to do. 
He ’s got the concrete now six inches out of 
level ; you can see it plainly at low water.” 

'‘No wonder he takes his revenge,” she said, 
cutting straight into the heart of the matter 
with that marvelous power peculiar to some 
women. “ What else has gone wrong ” She 
meant him to tell her everything, knowing that 
to let him completely unburden his mind would 


A NARROW PATH 


239 


give him the only real rest that he needed. 
She liked, too, to feel her influence over him. 
That he always consulted her in such matters 
was to Kate one of the keenest pleasures that 
his friendship brought. 

“Everything, I sometimes think. We are 
very much behind. That concrete base should 
have been finished two weeks ago. The equi- 
noctial gale is nearly due. If we can’t get the 
first two courses of masonry laid by the middle 
of November, I may have to wait until spring 
for another payment, and that about means 
bankruptcy.” 

“What does Captain Joe think } ” 

“He says we shall pull through if we have 
no more setbacks. Dear old Captain Joe ! no- 
thing upsets him. We certainly have had our 
share of them this season : first it was the explo- 
sion, and now it is Carleton’s spite.” 

“ Suppose you do lose time, Henry, and do 
have to wait until spring to go on with the 
work. It will not be for the first time.” There 
was a sympathetic yet hopeful tone in her voice. 
“ When you sunk the coffer-dam at Kingston, 
three years ago, and it lay all winter in the ice, 
did n’t you worry yourself half sick 1 And yet 
it all came out right. Oh, you needn’t raise 
your eyebrows ; I saw it myself. You know 
you are better equipped now, both in experi- 
ence and in means, than you were then. Make 
some allowance for your own temperament, and 


240 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


please don’t forget the nights you have lain 
awake worrying over nothing. It will all come 
out right.” She leaned toward him and laid 
her hand on his, as an elder sister might have 
done, and in a gayer tone added, “I’m going 
to Medford soon, myself, and I ’ll invite this 
dreadful Mr. Carleton to come over to luncheon, 
and you ’ll get your certificate next day. What 
does he look like ? ” 

Sanford broke into a laugh. “You wouldn’t 
touch him with a pair of tongs, and I would n’t 
let you, — even with them.” 

“Then I ’ll do it, anyway, just to show you 
how clever I am,” she retorted, with a pretty, 
bridling toss of her head. She had taken her 
hand away. Sanford still held his own extended. 

Kate’s tact was having its effect. Under the 
magic of her sympathy his cares had folded 
their tents. Carletoti was fast becoming a dim 
speck on the horizon, and his successive trou- 
bles were but a string of camels edging the 
blue distance of his thoughts. 

It was always like this. She never failed to 
comfort and inspire him. Whenever his anxie- 
ties became unbearable it was to Kate that he 
turned, as he had done to-night. The very 
touch of her soft hand, so white and delicate, 
laid upon his arm, and the exquisite play of 
melody in her voice, soothed and strengthened 
him. Things were never half so bad as they 
seemed, when he could see her look at him mis« 


A NARROW PATH 


241 


chievously from under her lowered eyelids as 
she said, “ Mercy, Henry ! is that all ? I thought 
the whole lighthouse had been washed away.” 
And he never missed the inspiration of the 
change that followed, — the sudden quiet of 
her face, the very tensity of her figure, as she 
added in earnest tones, instinct with courage 
and sympathy, some word of hopeful interest 
that she of all women best knew how to give. 

With the anxieties dispelled which had 
brought him hurrying to-night to Gramercy 
Park, they both relapsed into silence, — a silence 
such as was common to their friendship, one 
which was born neither of ennui nor of dis- 
content, the boredom of friends nor the pov- 
erty of meagre minds, but that restful silence 
which comes only to two minds and hearts in 
entire accord, without the necessity of a single 
spoken word to lead their thoughts; a close, 
noiseless fitting together of two temperaments, 
with all the rough surfaces of their natures 
worn smooth by long association each with the 
other. In such accord is found the strongest 
proof of true and perfect friendship. It is only 
when this estate no longer satisfies, and one or 
both crave the human touch, that the danger- 
line is crossed. When stealthy fingers set the 
currents of both hearts free, and the touch be- 
comes electric, discredited friendship escapes by 
the window, and triumphant love enters by the 
door. 


242 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

The lantern shed its rays over Kate’s white 
draperies, warming them with a pink glow. 
The smoke of Sanford’s cigar curled upward 
in the still air and drifted out into the garden, 
or was lost in the vines of the jessamine trail- 
ing about the porch. Now and then the still- 
ness was broken by some irrelevant remark 
suggested by the perfume of the flowers, the 
quiet of the night, the memory of Jack’s and 
Helen’s happiness ; but silence always fell 
again, except for an occasional light tattoo of 
Kate’s dainty slipper on the floor. A restful 
lassitude, the reaction from the constant hourly 
strain of his work, came over Sanford ; the world 
of perplexity seemed shut away, and he was 
happier than he had been in weeks. Suddenly 
and without preliminary question, Mrs. Leroy 
asked sharply, with a, strange, quivering break 
in her voice, What about that poor girl Betty ? 
Has she patched it up yet with Caleb ? She 
told me, the night she stayed with me, that she 
loved him dearly. Poor girl ! she has nothing 
but misery ahead of her if she does n’t.” She 
spoke with a certain tone in her voice that 
showed but too plainly the new mood that had 
taken possession of her. 

‘‘Pity she didn’t find it out before she left 
him ! ” exclaimed Sanford. 

“ Pity he did n’t do something to show his 
appreciation of her, you mean ! ” she inter- 
rupted, with a quick toss of her head. 


A NARROW PATH 


243 


“You are all wrong, Kate. Caleb is the gen- 
tlest and kindest of men. You don’t know that 
old diver, or you wouldn’t judge him harshly.” 

“Oh, he didn’t beat her, I suppose. He 
only left her to get along by herself. I wish 
such men would take it out in beating. Some 
women could stand that better. It ’s the cold 
indifference that kills.” She had risen from her 
seat, and was pacing the floor of the veranda. 

“Well, that was not his fault, Kate. While 
the working season lasts he must be on the 
Ledge. He couldn’t come in every night.” 

“That ’s what they all say ! If it ’s not one 
excuse, it ’s another. I ’m tired to death of hear- 
ing about men who would rather make money 
than make homes. Now that he has driven her 
out of her wits by his brutality, he closes his 
door against her, even when she crawls back on 
her knees. But don’t you despise her.” She 
stood before him, looking down into his face for 
a moment. “Be just as sweet and gentle to 
her as you can. If she ever goes wrong again, 
it will be the world’s fault or her husband’s, — 
not her own. Tell her from me that I trust her 
and believe in her, and that 1 send her my love.” 

Sanford listened to her with ill-concealed ad- 
miration. It was when she was defending or 
helping some one that she appealed to him 
most. At those times he recognized that her 
own wrongs had not imbittered her, but had 
only made her the more considerate. 


244 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ There ’s never a day you don’t teach me 
something,” he answered quietly, his eyes fixed 
on her moving figure. Perhaps I have been 
a little hard on Betty, but it ’s because I ’ve 
seen how Caleb suffers.” 

She stopped again in her walk and leaned 
over the rail of the veranda, her chin on her 
hand. Sanford watched her, following the 
bend of her exquisite head and the marvelous 
slope of her shoulders. He saw that something 
unusual had stirred her, but he could not de- 
cide whether it was caused by the thought of 
Betty’s misery or by some fresh sorrow of her 
own. He threw away his cigar, rose from his 
chair, and joined her at the railing. He could 
be unhappy himself and stand up under it, but 
he could not bear to see a shade cross Kate’s 
face. 

“ You are not happy to-night,” he said. 

She did not answer. 

Sanford waited, looking down over the gar- 
den. He could sec the shadowy outlines of 
the narrow walks and the white faces of the 
roses drooping over the gravel. When he 
spoke again there were hesitating; halting tones 
in his voice, as if he were half afraid to follow 
the course he had dared to venture on. 

“ Is Morgan coming home, Kate ^ ” 

“ I don’t know,” she replied dreamily, after 
a pause. 

“ Did n’t he say in his last letter ? ” 


A NARROW PATH 


245 


“ Oh yes ; answered as he always does, — 
when he gets through.” 

“ Where is he now ? ” 

“Paris, I believe.” 

She had not moved nor lifted her chin from 
her hand. 

Minutes went by without her speaking again. 
A strange hush fell about them. Sanford could 
hear the click of the old clock in the hall, and 
the monotonous song of the crickets in the 
grass below. 

A sense of great remoteness from her came 
over him. It was as though she had gone into 
a room alone with her griefs and her sobs, and 
had locked the door behind her. He had not 
meant to wound her by his questions, only to 
discover whether some new phase of the old 
grief were hurting her. If it were anything 
else but the sorrow he never touched, he stood 
ready to give her all his strength. 

He looked at her intently. She had never 
appeared to him so beautiful, so pathetic : there 
was a hopeless weariness in her pose that 
vibrated through him as nothing had done in 
months. The change in her mood had come 
suddenly, as all changes did in her, but to-night 
he seemed unable to meet them. A great rush 
of feeling surged over him. He stepped closer, 
lifting his hand to lay on her head. Then, 
with an abrupt gesture, he turned and began 
pacing the veranda, his head bowed, his hands 


246 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


clasped behind his back. Strange, unutterable 
thoughts whirled through his brain ; unbidden, 
unspeakable words crowded in his throat. He 
made one great effort at self-control, stopped 
once more, this time laying his hand upon her 
shoulder. He felt in his heart that it was the 
same old sorrow which now racked her, but an 
uncontrollable impulse swept him on. All the 
restraint of years seemed slipping from him. 

“ Kate, what is it ? You break my heart. 
Is there something else to worry you, — some- 
thing you have n’t told me ? ” 

She shivered slightly as she felt the hand 
tighten on her shoulder. Then a sudden, tin- 
gling thrill ran through her. 

“ I have never any right to be unhappy when 
I have you, Henry. You are all the world to 
me, — all I have.” 

It was not the answer he had expected. 
For an instant the blood left his face, his heart 
stood still. 

Kate raised her head, and their eyes met. 

There are narrow paths in life where one 
fatal step sends a man headlong. There are 
eyes in women’s heads as deep as the abyss 
below. Hers were wide open, with the fearless 
confidence of an affection she was big enough 
to give. He saw down into their depths, and 
read there — as they flashed toward him in 
intermittent waves over the barrier of the re- 
serve she sometimes held — love, truth, and 


A NARROW PATH 


247 


courage. To disturb these, even by the sym- 
pathy she longed to receive and he to give, 
might, he knew, endanger the ideal of that 
loyalty to another in her which he venerated 
most. To go behind it and break down the 
wall of that self-control of hers which held in 
check the unknown, untouched springs of her 
heart might loosen a flood that would wreck the 
only bark which could keep them both afloat 
on the troubled waters of life, — their friend- 
ship. 

Sanford bent his head, raised her hand to his 
lips, kissed it reverently, and without a word 
walked slowly toward his chair. 

As he regained his seat the butler pushed 
aside the light curtains of the veranda, and 
in his regulation monotone announced, “ Miss 
Shirley, Major Slocomb, and Mr. Hardy.” 

“ My dear madam,” broke out the major in 
his breeziest manner, before Mrs. Leroy could 
turn to greet him, what would life be in this 
bake-oven of a city but for the joy of yo’r pre- 
sence ? And Henry ! You here, too Do you 
know that that rascal Jack has kept me waiting 
for two hours while he took Helen for a five 
minutes’ walk round the square, or I would have 
been here long ago. Where are you, you young 
dog .^ ” he called to Jack, who had lingered in 
the darkened hall with Helen. 

“What’s the matter now, major.?” inquired 
Jack, shaking hands with Mrs. Leroy, and turn- 


248 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


ing again toward the Pocomokian. “ I asked 
your permission. What would you have me do ? 
Let Helen see nothing of New York, because 
you ” — 

“Do hush up, cousin Tom,” said Helen, 
pursing her lips at the major. “ We stayed 
out because we wanted to, did n’t we, Jack.^ 
Don’t you think he is a perfect ogre, Mrs. 
Leroy .? ” 

“ He forgets his own younger days, my 
dear Miss Shirley,” she answered. “He shan’t 
scold you. Henry, make the major join you 
in a cigar, while I give Miss Helen a cup of 
coffee.” 

“They are both forgiven, my dear madam, 
when so lovely an advocate pleads their cause,” 
said the Pocomokian grandiloquently, bowing 
low, his hand on his chest. “ Thank you ; I will 
join you,” and leaned over Sanford as he spoke, 
and lighted a cigar in the blue flame of the tiny 
silver lamp. 

It was delightful to note how the coming 
alliance of the Hardy and Slocomb families had 
developed the paternal, not to say patriarchal 
attitude of the major toward his once boon 
companion. He already regarded Jack as his 
own son, — somebody to lean upon in his de- 
clining years, a prop and a staff for his old age. 
He had even sketched out in his mind a certain 
stately mansion on the avenue, to say nothing 
of a series of country-seats, — one on Crab 


A NARROW PATH 


249 


Island in the Chesapeake, — all with porticoes 
and an especial suite of rooms on the ground 
floor ; and he could hear Jack say, as he pointed 
them out to his visitors, “ These are for my 
dear old friend Major Slocomb of Pocomoke, — 
member of my wife’s family.” He could see 
his old enemy, Jefferson, Jack’s servant, cowed 
into respectful obedience by the new turn in 
his master’s affairs, in which the Pocomokian 
had lent so helpful a hand. 

‘‘ She is the child of my old age, so to speak, 
suh, and I, of co’se, gave my consent after great 
hesitation,” he would frequently say, fully per- 
suading himself that Helen had really sought 
his approbation, and never for one moment 
dreaming that, grateful as she was to him for 
his chaperonage of her while in New York, he 
was the last person in the world she would 
have consulted in any matter so vital to her 
happiness. 

Jack accepted the change in the major’s 
manner with the same good humor that sea- 
soned everything that came to him in life. He 
had known the Pocomokian for too many years 
to misunderstand him now, and this new depar- 
ture, with its patronizing airs and fatherly over- 
sight, only amused him. 

Mrs. Leroy had drawn the young girl toward 
the divan, and was already discussing her plans 
for the summer. 

“ Of course you are both to come to me this 


250 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

fall, when the beautiful Indian summer weather 
sets in. The Pines is never so lovely as then. 
You shall sail to your heart’s content, for the 
yacht is in order ; and we will then see what 
this great engineer has been doing all sum- 
mer,” she added, glancing timidly from under 
her dark eyelashes at Sanford. “Mr. Leroy’s 
last instructions were to keep the yacht in com- 
mission until he came home. I am determined 
you shall have one more good time. Miss Helen, 
before this young man ties you hand and foot. 
You will come, major 

“ I cannot promise, madam. It will depend 
entirely on my arrangin’ some very important 
matters of business. I hope to be able to come 
for perhaps a day or so.” 

Jack looked at Sanford and smiled. Evi- 
dently Mrs. Leroy did, not know the length of 
the major’s “day or so.” Nor that it was apt 
to depend upon the date of the next invitation. 
He was still staying with Jack, and had been 
there since the spring. 

Buckles, the butler, had been bending over 
the major as that gentleman delivered himself 
of this announcement of his hopes. When he 
had filled to the brim the tiny liqueur glass, the 
major — perhaps in a moment of forgetfulness 
--said, “Thank you, suh,” at which Buckles’s 
face hardened. Such slips were not infrequent. 
The major was, in fact, always a little uncom- 
fortable in Buckles’s presence. Jack, who had 


A NARROW PATH 


251 


often noticed his attitude, thought that these 
conciliatory remarks were intended as pallia- 
tives to the noiseless English flunky with the 
immovable face and impenetrable manner. The 
Pocomokian never extended such deference to 
Sam, Sanford’s own servant, or even to Jeffer- 
son. Here, Sam, you black scoundrel, bring 
me my hat,” he would say whenever he was 
leaving Sanford’s apartments, at which Sam’s 
face would relax quite as much as Buckles’s 
had hardened. But then the major knew Sam’s 
kind, and Sam knew the major, and, strange to 
say, believed in him. 

When Buckles had retired, Sanford started 
the Pocomokian on a discussion in which all 
the talking would fall to the latter’s share. 
Mrs. Leroy turned to Helen and Jack again. 
There was no trace, in her voice nor on her 
features, of the emotion that had so stirred 
her. All that side of her nature had been 
shut away the moment her guests appeared. 

“ Don’t mind a word Jack says to you, my 
dear, about hurrying up the wedding-day,” she 
laughed, in a half-earnest and altogether charm- 
ing way, — not cynical, but with a certain un- 
dercurrent of genuine anxiety in her voice, all 
the more keenly felt by Sanford, who waited 
on every word that fell from her lips. “ Put it 
off as long as possible. So many troubles and 
disappointments come afterwards, and it is so 
hard to keep everything as it should be. There 


252 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

is no happier time in life than that just before 
marriage. Oh, you need n’t scowl at me, you 
young Bluebeard ; I know all about it, and you 
don’t know one little bit.” 

Helen looked at Jack in some wonder. She 
was at a loss to know how much of the talk 
was pure badinage, and how much, perhaps, the 
result of some bitter worldly experience. The 
young girl shuddered, yet without knowing 
what inspired the remark or what lay behind 
it. But she laughed quite heartily, as she said. 
It is all true, no doubt ; only I intend to begin 
by being something of a tyrant myself, don’t I, 
Jack.?” 

Before Jack could reply. Smear ly, who had 
hurried by Buckles, entered unannounced, and 
with a general smile of recognition, and two 
fingers to the major, settled himself noiselessly 
in an easy-chair, and reached over the silver 
tray for a cup. It was a house where such 
freedom was not commented on, and Smearly 
was one of those big Newfoundland-dog kind of 
visitors who avail themselves of all privileges. 

‘‘What is the subject under discussion.?” 
the painter asked, as he dropped a lump of sugar 
into his cup and turned to his hostess. 

“ I have just been telling Miss Shirley how 
happy she will make us when she comes to 
The Pines this autumn.” 

“ And you have consented, of course .? ” he 
inquired carelessly, lifting his bushy eyebrows. 


A NARROW PATH 


253 


“ Oh yes,” answered Helen, a faint shadow 
settling for a moment on her face. It ’s so 
kind of Mrs. Leroy to want me. You are 
coming, too, are you not, Mr. Sanford .? ” and 
she moved toward Henry’s end of the divan, 
where Jack followed her. She had never liked 
Smearly. She did not know why, but he al- 
ways affected her strangely. “He looks like 
a bear,” she once told Jack, “with his thick 
neck and his restless movements.” 

“ Certainly, Miss Helen, I am going, too,” 
replied Sanford. “1 tolerate my work all sum- 
mer in expectation of these few weeks in the 
autumn.” 

The young girl raised her eyes quickly. 
Somehow it did not sound to her like Sanford’s 
voice. There was an unaccustomed sense of 
strain in it. She moved a little nearer to him, 
however, impelled by some subtle sympathy 
for the man who was not only Jack’s friend, 
but one she trusted as well. 

“ Lovely to be so young and hopeful, is n’t 
it .? ” said Mrs. Leroy to Smearly, with a move- 
ment of her head toward Helen. “ Look at 
those two. Nothing but rainbows for her and 
Jack.” 

“ Rainbows come after the storm, my dear 
lady, not before,” rejoined Smearly. “ If they 
have any prismatics in theirs, they will appear 
in a year or two_ from now.” He had lowered 
his voice so that Helen should not hear. 


254 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ You never believe in anything. You, hate 
women,” said Mrs. Leroy impatiently in an 
undertone. 

“True, but with some exceptions; you, for 
instance,” with a mock bow. “But why fool 
ourselves, my dear lady ? The first year is one 
of sugar-plums, flowers, and canary-birds. We 
can’t keep our hands off them ; we love them 
so we want to eat them up.” 

“Just like any other wild beast,” interrupted 
Mrs. Leroy, with a gurgling laugh, her head 
bent coquettishly on one side. 

“The second year both are pulling in oppo- 
site directions.” (He affected not to have heard 
her thrust.) “ Then comes a snap of the mat- 
rimonial cord, and over they go. Of course 
neither of these two turtle-doves has the slightest 
idea of anything of the kind. They expect to 
go on and on and on, like the dear little babes 
in the wood; but they won’t, all the same. 
Some day an old crow of an attorney will come 
and cover them over with dried briefs, and that 
will be the last of it.” 

Sanford took no part in the general talk. 
He was listless, absorbed. He felt an irresist- 
ible desire to be alone, and stayed on only 
because Helen’s many little confidences, told 
to him in her girlish way, as she sat beside him 
oii the divan, required but an acquiescing nod 
now and then, or a random reply, which he 
could give without betraying himself. 


A NARROW PATH 


255 


He was first of all the guests to rise. In 
response to Mrs. Leroy’s anxious glance, as he 
bade her good-night between the veranda cur- 
tains, he explained, in tones loud enough to be 
heard by everybody, that it was necessary to 
make an early start in the morning for the 
Ledge, and that he had some important letters 
to write that night. 

Don’t forget to telegraph me if you get the 
certificate,” was all she said. 

Helen and Jack followed Sanford. They too 
wanted to be alone ; that is, together, — in 
their case the same thing. 

Once outside and under the trees of the 
park, Helen stopped in a secluded spot, their 
shadows under the electric light flecking the 
pavement, took the lapels of Jack’s coat in her 
hands, and said, “Jack, dear, I wasn’t happy 
there to-night. She never could have loved 
anybody.” 

“Who, darling ” 

“ Why, Mrs. Leroy. Did you hear what she 
said ? ” 

“Yes, but it was only Kate. That’s her 
way, Helen. She never means half she says.” 

“Yes, but the way she said it. Jack. She 
does n’t know what love means. Loving is not 
being angry all the time. Loving is helping, — 
helping everywhere and in everything. What- 
ever either needs the other gives. I can’t say 
it just as I want to, but you know what I mean. 


256 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

And that Mr. Smearly ; he didn’t think I heard, 
but I did.” 

“ Dear heart,” said Jack, smoothing her cheek 
with his hand, don’t believe everything you 
hear. You are not accustomed to the ways 
of these people. Down in your own home in 
Maryland people mean what they say ; here 
they don’t. Smearly is all right. He was ‘talk- 
ing through his hat,’ as the boys say at the club, 
— that ’s all. You ’d think, to hear him go on, 
that he was a sour, crabbed old curmudgeon, 
now, wouldn’t you.^ Well, you never were 
more mistaken in your life. Every penny he 
can save he gives to an old sister of his, who 
has n’t seen a well day for years. That ’s only 
his talk.” 

“ But why does he speak that way, then ? 
When people love as they ought to love, every 
time a disappointment in the other comes, it is 
just one more opportunity to help, — not a 
cause for ridicule. I love you that way. Jack ; 
don’t you love me so ” and she looked up into 
his eyes. 

“I love you a million ways, you sweet girl,” 
and, with a rapid glance about him to see that 
no one was near, he slipped his arm about her 
and held her close to his breast. 

He felt himself lifted out of the atmosphere 
of romance in which he had lived for months. 
This gentle, shrinking Southern child whom he 
had loved and petted and smothered with roses, 


A NARROW PATH 


257 


this tender, clinging girl who trusted him so 
implicitly, was no longer his sweetheart, but 
his helpmate. She had all at once become 
a woman, — strong, courageous, clear-minded, 
helpful, ready to lead him if need be. 

A new feeling rose in his heart and spread 
itself through every fibre of his being, — a feel- 
ing without which love is a plaything. It was 
reverence. 

When Sanford reached his apartments Sam 
was waiting for him, as usual. The candles 
were lighted instead of the lamp. The win- 
dows of the balcony were wide open. 

“ You need not wait, Sam ; I ’ll close the 
blinds,” he said, as he stepped out and sank 
into a chair. 

Long after Sam had gone he sat there with- 
out moving, his head bent, his forehead resting 
on his hand. He was trying to pick up the 
threads of his life again, to find the old pattern 
which had once guided him in his course, and 
to clear it from the tangle of lines that had sud- 
denly twisted and confused him. 

For a long time he saw nothing but Kate’s 
eyes as they had met his own, with the possi- 
bilities which he had read in their depths. He 
tried to drive the picture from him ; then baffled 
by its persistence he resolutely faced it ; held 
it as it were in his hands, and, looking long and 
unflinchingly at it, summoned all his courage. 


258 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

He had read Kate’s heart in her face. He 
knew that he had revealed his own. But he 
meant that the future should be unaffected by 
the revelations made. The world must never - 
share her confidence nor his, as it would surely 
do at their first false step. It should not have 
the right to turn and look, and to wonder at the 
woman whom he was proud to love. That open 
fearlessness which all who knew her gloried in 
should still be hers. He realized the value of 
it to her, and what its loss would entail should 
a spoken word of his rob her of it, or any 
momentary weakness of theirs deprive her of 
the strength and comfort which his open com- 
panionship could give. 

No ! God willing, he would stand firm, and 
so should she. 

An hour later he was still there, his unlighted 
cigar between his lips, his head on his hands. 


CHAPTER XVI 


UNDER THE WILLOWS 

The mile or more of shore skirting the curve 
of Keyport harbor from Keyport Village to 
Captain Joe’s cottage was lighted by only four 
street lamps. Three of these were hung on 
widely scattered telegraph-poles ; the fourth was 
nailed fast to one end of old Captain Potts’s 
fish-house. 

When the nights were moonless, these faith- 
ful sentinels, with eyes alert, scanned the wind- 
ing road, or so much of it as their lances could 
protect, watching over deep culverts, and in one 
place guarded a treacherous bridge without a 
rail. 

When the nights were cloudy and the lan- 
tern-panes were dimmed by the driving sleet, 
these beacons confined their efforts to pointing 
out for the stumbling wayfarer the deep pud- 
dles or the higher rows of soggy seaweed 
washed up by the last high tide into the high- 
way itself. Only on thick nights, when the 
fog-drift stole in from the still sea, and even 
Keyport Light burned dim, did their scouting 
rays retreat discomfited, illumining nothing but 
the poles on which the lanterns hung. 


26 o CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Yet in spite of this vigilance there were still 
long stretches of road between, which even on 
clear nights were dark as graveyards and as 
lonesome. Except for the ruddy gleam slanted 
across the path from some cabin window, or the 
glare of a belated villager’s swinging lantern 
flecking the pale, staring fences with seesawing 
lights and shadows, not a light was visible. 

Betty knew every foot of this road. She had 
trundled her hoop on it, her hair flying in the 
wind, when she first came to Keyport to school. 
She had trodden it many a time with Caleb ; had 
idled along its curves with Lacey before the 
day when her life came to an end, and had 
plodded over it many a weary hour since, as she 
went to her work in the village or returned to 
Captain Joe’s. Every stone and tree and turn 
were familiar to her, and she could have found 
her way in the pitch-dark to the captain’s or to 
Caleb’s, just as she had done again and again 
in the days before the street lights were set, or 
when Caleb would be standing on the porch, if 
she were late, shading his eyes and peering 
down the road, the kitchen lamp in his hand. 

I was gittin’ worrited, little woman ; what 
kep’ ye ” he would say. She had never been 
afraid in those days, no matter what the hour. 
Everybody knew her. Oh, that ’s you. Mis’ 
West, is it ? I kind o’ mistrusted it was,” 
would come from some shadowy figure across 
the road. 


und]:r the willows 261 

All this was changed for her now. There 
were places along the highway that made her 
draw her shawl closer, often half hiding her 
face. She would shudder as she turned the 
corner by the church, the one where the cap- 
tain and Aunty Bell had taken her the first Sun- 
day after her coming back. The big, gloomy oil 
warehouse where she had nursed Lacey seemed 
to her haunted and uncanny, and at night more 
gloomy than ever without a ray of light in any 
one of its broken, staring windows. Even the 
fishing-smacks, anchored out of harm’s way for 
the night, looked gruesome and mysterious, with 
single lights aloft, and black hulls and masts 
reflected in the water. It was never until she 
reached the willows that her agitation disap- 
peared. These grew just opposite Captain 
Potts’s fish-house. There were three of them, 
and their branches interlocked and spread across 
the road", the spaces between the trunks being 
black at night, despite the one street lamp nailed 
to the fish-house across the way. When Betty 
gained these trees her breath always came freer. 
She could then see along the whole road, away 
past Captain Joe’s, and up the hill. She could 
see, too, Caleb’s cabin from this spot, and the 
lamp burning in the kitchen window. She 
knew who was sitting beside it. From these 
willows, also, she could run for Captain Joe’s 
swinging gate with its big ball and chain, get- 
ting safely inside before Caleb could pass and 


262 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

see her, if by any chance he should be on the 
road and coming to the village. Once she had 
met him this side of their dark shadows. It 
was on a Saturday, and he was walking into the 
village, his basket on his arm. He was going 
for his Sunday supplies, no doubt. The Ledge 
gang must have come in sooner than usual, for 
it was early twilight. She had seen him com- 
ing a long way off, and had looked about for 
some means of escape. There was no mistak- 
ing his figure. She would know him as far as 
she could see him, — that strong, broad figure, 
with the awkward, stiff walk peculiar to so 
many seafaring men, particularly lightship-keep- 
ers like Caleb, who have walked but little. She 
knew, too, the outline of the big, fluffy beard 
that the wind caught and blew over his ruddy 
face. No one could be like her Caleb but him- 
self. 

These chance meetings she dreaded with a 
fear she could not overcome. On this last 
occasion, finding no concealing shelter, she had 
kept on, her eyes on the ground. When Caleb 
had passed, his blue eyes staring straight ahead, 
his face drawn and white, the lips pressed close, 
she turned and looked after him, and he turned, 
too, and looked after her, these two, man 
and wife, within reach of each other’s arms and 
lips, yet with only the longing hunger of -a dead 
happiness in their eyes. She could have run 
toward him, and knelt down in the road, and 


UNDER THE WILLOWS 263 

begged him to forgive her and take her home 
again, had not Captain Joe’s words restrained 
her : “ Caleb says he ain’t got nothin’ agin ye, 
child, but he won’t take ye back s’ long ’s he 
lives.” 

Because, then, of the dread of these chance 
meetings, and because of the shy looks of many 
of the villagers, who, despite Captain Joe’s 
daily fight, still passed her with but a slight 
nod of recognition, she was less unhappy when 
she walked the road at night than in the day- 
light. The chance of being recognized was 
less. Caleb might pass her in the dark and 
not see her, and then, too, there were fewer 
people passing after dark. 

On the Saturday night succeeding that on 
which they had met and looked at each other, 
she determined to wait until it was quite dark. 
He would have come in then, and she could slip 
out from the shop where she worked and gain 
the shore road before he had finished making 
his purchases in the village. 

Her heart had been very heavy all day. The 
night before she had left her own bed and 
tapped at Aunty Bell’s door, and had crept 
under the coverlid beside the little woman, the 
captain being at the Ledge, and had had one of 
her hearty cries, sobbing on the elder woman’s 
neck, her arms about her, her cheek to hers. 
She had gone over with her for the hundredth 
time all the misery of her position, wondering 


264 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

what would become of her ; and how hard it 
was for Caleb to do all his work alone, — wash- 
ing his clothes and cooking his meals just as he 
had done on board the lightship ; pouring out 
her heart until she fell asleep from sheer ex- 
haustion. All of her thoughts were centred in 
him and his troubles. She longed to go back 
to Caleb to take care of him. It was no longer 
to be taken care of, but to care for him. 

As she hurried through the streets, after 
leaving the shop, and gained the corner leading 
to the shore road, she glanced up and down, 
fearing to see the sturdy figure with the basket. 
But there was no one in sight whom she knew. 
At this discovery she slackened her steps and 
looked around more quietly. When she reached 
the bend in the road, a flash of light from an 
open door in a cabin near by gave her a mo- 
mentary glimpse of a housewife bending over 
a stove and a man putting a dinner-pail on the 
kitchen table. Then all was dark again. It 
was but a momentary glimpse of a happiness 
the possibility of which in her own life she had 
wrecked, but it sent the blood tingling to her 
face. She stopped, steadying herself by the 
stone wall, then she walked on. 

When she passed into the black shadows of 
the overhanging willows, a man stepped from 
behind a tree-trunk. 

“Aren’t you rather late this evening.?” he 
asked, 


UNDER THE WILLOWS 265 

Betty stood still, the light of the street lamp 
full on her face. The abruptness of the sound 
startled her. 

Oh, you need n’t be afraid ; I ’m not going 
to hurt you.” 

The girl peered into the gloom. She thought 
the voice was familiar, though she was not sure. 
She could distinguish only a shadowy face. 

“ What makes you so skittish, anyhow } ” the 
man asked again, — in a lower tone this time. 
“You didn’t use to be so. I thought maybe 
you might like to drive over to Medford and 
see the show to-night.” 

Betty made no answer, but she took a step 
nearer to him, trying to identify him. She was 
not afraid ; only curious. Then all at once it 
occurred to her that it could be for no good 
purpose he had stopped her. None of the men 
had spoken to her in the street, even in the day- 
time^ since her return home. 

“ Please let me pass,” she said quietly and 
firmly. 

“ Oh, you need n’t be in a hurry. We ’ve 
got all night. Come along, now, won’t you .? 
You used to like me once, before you shook the 
old man.” 

Betty knew him now ! 

The terror of her position overcame her ; a 
deathly faintness seized her. 

She saw it all ; she knew why this man dared. 
She realized the loneliness and desolation of 


266 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

her position, poor child that she was. Every 
cabin near her filled with warmth and cheer 
and comfort, and she friendless and alone! 
Not a woman near but had the strong arm of 
husband or brother to help and defend her. 
The very boats in the harbor, with their bea- 
con-lights aloft, protected and safe. Only she 
in danger ; only she unguarded, waylaid, open 
to insult, even by a man like this. 

She stood shivering, looking into his cowardly 
face. Then rousing herself to her peril, she 
sprang toward the road. ' In an instant the man 
had seized her wrist. She felt his hot breath 
on her face. 

“ Oh, come now, none of that ! Say, why 
ain’t I as good as Bill Lacey.? Give me a 
kiss.” 

“ Let me go ! Let me go ! How dare you 1 ” 
she cried, struggling in his grasp. When 
she found his strength gaining on her, she 
screamed. 

Hardly had she made her outcry, when from 
behind the fish-house a man with a flowing 
beard darted into the shadows, flung himself on 
Betty’s assailant, and dragged him out under 
the glare of the street lamp. The girl fled up 
the road without looking behind. 

“That’s what ye’re up to, is it, Mr. Carle- 
ton .? ” said the man, holding the other with the 
grip of a steel vise. “ I ’spected as much when 
I see ye passin’ my place. Damn ye ! If it 


UNDER THE WILLOWS 267 

warn’t that it would be worse for her, I ’d kill 
ye ! ” 

Every muscle in the speaker’s body was tense 
with anger. Carleton’s head was bent back, his 
face livid from the pressure of his assailant’s 
fingers twisted about his throat. 

The man slowly relaxed his hold. “Ain’t 
she got trouble ’nough without havin’ a skunk 
like you a-runnin’ foul o’ her ? ” 

Carleton made a quick gesture as if to spring 
aside and run. The diver saw the movement 
and stepped in front of him. 

“ Ain’t ye ashamed o’ yerself } Ain’t it mean 
o’ ye to make up to a gal like Betty.?” His 
voice was low and measured. 

“What ’s it your business, anyhow .? ” Carle- 
ton gasped between his breaths, shaking him- 
self like a tousled dog. “ What are you putting 
on frills about her for, anyhow ? She ’s nothing 
to you, if she is your wife. I guess I know 
what I ’m doing.” 

Caleb’s fingers grew hard and rigid as claws. 

“So do I know what ye’re a-doin’. Ye’d 
drag that child down an’ stomp on her, if ye 
could. Ye ’d make a thing of her,” — the words 
came with a hiss, — “ you — you — callin’ yer- 
self a man ! ” 

“ Why don’t you take care of her, then .? ” 
snarled Carleton, with an assumed air of com- 
posure, as he adjusted his collar and cuffs. 

“That’s wha^ I’m here for; that’s why I 


i68 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

follered ye ; there ain’t a night since it begun 
to git dark I ain’t watched her home. She’s 
not yourn ; she ’s mine. Look at me,” — Caleb 
stepped closer and raised his clinched fist. If 
ever ye speak to her agin, so help me God, I 
7vill kill ye ! ” 

With one swing of his arm he threw the 
superintendent out of his way, and strode up 
the street. 

Carleton staggered from the blow, and would 
have fallen but for the wall of the fish-house. 
For a moment he stood in the road looking 
after Caleb’s retreating figure. Then, with a 
forced bravado in his voice, he called out in the 
darkness, “ If you think so damn much of her, 
why don’t you take her home t ” and slunk 
away toward the village. 

The old man did not turn. If he heard, he 
made no sign. He walked on, with his head 
down, his eyes on the road. As he passed Cap- 
tain Joe’s he loitered at the gate until he saw 
the light flash up in Betty’s bedroom ; then he 
kept on to his own cabin. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE SONG OF THE FIRE 

The fire was nearly out when Caleb entered 
his kitchen door and drew a chair to the stove. 
Carleton’s taunting words, “ Why don’t you take 
her home? ” rang in his ears. Their sting hurt 
him. Everything else seemed to fall away from 
his mind. He knew why he did not take her 
home, he said to himself ; every one else knew 
why, — every one up and down Keyport knew 
what Betty had done to ruin him. If she was 
friendless, tramping the road, within sight of 
her own house, whose fault was it ? Not his. 
He had never done anything but love her and 
take care of her. 

He reached for a pair of tongs, stirred the 
coals, and threw on a single piece of driftwood. 
The fire blazed up brightly at once, its light 
flickering on the diver’s ruddy face, and as 
quickly died out. 

Why don’t I take care of ’er, eh ? Why 
did n’t she take care of herself ? ” he cried aloud, 
gazing into the smouldering embers. “ She 
sees what it is now trampin’ the road nights, 
runnin’ up agin such curs as him. He’s a nice 


270 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

an, he is. I wish I ’d choked the life out’er 
him ; such fellers ain’t no right to live,” look- 
ing about him as if he expected to find Carle- 
ton behind the door, and as quickly recovering 
himself. “ I wonder if he hurt ’er,” — his voice 
had softened. “ She screamed turrible. I ought, 
maybe, to ’a’ ketched up to her. Poor little 
gal, she ain’t used to this.” He was silent 
awhile, his head bent, his shoulders updrawn, 
his big frame stretched out in the chair. 

“She. ain’t nothin’ but a child, anyhow,” he 
broke out again, — “ Cap’n Joe says so. He says 
I don’t think o’ this ; maybe he ’s right. He 
says I ’m bigger an’ twice as old’s she be, an’ 
ought’er know more ; that it ain’t me she ’s 
hurted, — it ’s herself ; that I married her to 
take care of ’er ; and that the fust time she got 
in a hole I go back on ’er, ’cause she ’s dragged 
me in arter ’er. Well, ain’t I a-takin’ care of 
’er Ain’t I split squar’ in two every cent 
I ’ve earned since she run away with that ” — 

Caleb paused abruptly. Even to himself he 
never mentioned Lacey’s name. Bending for- 
ward he poked the fire vigorously, raking the 
coals around the single stick of driftwood. 
“ It ’s all very well for th’ cap’n to talk ; he 
ain’t gone through what I have.” 

Pushing back his chair he paced the small 
room, talking to himself as he walked, pausing 
to address his sentences to the several articles 
of furniture, — the chairs, the big table, the 


THE SONG OF THE FIRE 


271 


kitchen sink, whatever came in his way. It 
was an old trick of his when alone. “ I ain’t 
a-goin’ to have ’er come home so late no more,” 
he continued. His voice had sunk to a gentle 
whisper. “ I ’m goin’ to tell them folks she 
works for that they ’ve got to let ’er out afore 
dark, or she shan’t stay.” He was looking now 
at an old rocker as if it were the shopkeeper 
himself. “ She ’ll be so scared arter this she 
won’t have a minute’s peace. She need n’t 
worrit herself, though, ’bout that skunk. She ’s 
shut o’ him. But there ’ll be more of ’em. 
They all think that now I ’ve throwed ’er off 
they kin do as they ’ve a mind to.” He stopped 
again and gazed down at the floor, seemingly 
absorbed in a hole in one of the planks. 
“Cap’n Joe sez I ain’t got no business to 
throw ’er off. He would n’t treat a dog so, — 
that ’s what ye said, cap’n ; I ain’t never goin’ 
to forgit it. / ain’t throwed her off. She 
throwed me off, — lef’ me here without a word ; 
an’ ye know it, cap’n. Ye want me to take ’er 
back, do ye ” He spoke with as much ear- 
nestness as though the captain stood before 
him. “S’pose I do, an’ she finds out arter 
all that her cornin’ home was ’cause she was 
sheared of it all, and that she still loved ” — 

He stopped, reseated himself, and picking up 
another stick threw it on the fire, snuggling 
the two together. The sticks, cheered by each 
other’s warmth, burst into a crackling flame. 


272 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ Poor little Betty ! ” he began again aloud. 
‘‘I’m sorry for ye. Everybody’s agin ye, 
child, ’cept Cap’n Joe’s folks. I know it hurts 
ye turrible to have folks look away from ye. 
Ye always loved to have folks love ye. I 
ain’t got nothin’ agin ye, child, indeed I ain’t. 
It was my fault, not yourn. I told Cap’n Joe 
so; ask him, — he’ll tell ye.” He turned 
toward the empty chair beside him, as if he saw 
her sad face there. “I know it ’s hard, child,” 
shaking his head. “Ain’t nobody feels it 
more ’n me, — ain’t nobody feels it more ’n me. 
I guess I must take care o’ ye ; I guess there 
ain’t nobody else but me kin do it.” 

The logs blazed cheerily ; the whole room 
was alight. “ I wish ye loved me like ye did 
onct, little woman, — I would n’t want no 
better happiness ; jest me an’ you, like it useter 
was. I wonder if ye do .? No, I know ye 
don’t.” The last words came with a positive 
tone. 

For a long time he remained still, gazing 
at the blazing logs locked together, the flames 
dancing about them. Then he got up and 
roamed mechanically around the room, his 
thoughts away with Betty and her helpless 
condition, and her rightful dependence on him. 
In the same dreary way he opened the cup- 
board, took out a piece of cold meat and some 
slices of stale bread, laying them on the table, 
poured some tea into a cup and put it on the 


THE SONG OF THE FIRE 


273 


Stove ; it was easier making the tea that way 
than in a pot. He drew the table toward the 
fire, so that his supper would be within reach, 
stirring the brewing tea meanwhile with a fork 
he had in his hand, and began his frugal meal. 
Since Betty left he had never set the table. 
It seemed less lonely to eat this way. 

Just as he had finished there came a knock 
at the front door. Caleb started, and put down 
his cup. Who could come at this hour ? Cran- 
ing his head toward the small open hall, he saw 
through the glass in the door the outlines of a 
woman’s figure approaching him through the 
hall. Flis face flushed, and his heart seemed 
to jump in his throat. 

It ’s me, Caleb,” said the woman. ‘Ht ’s 
Aunty Bell. The door was open, so I did n’t 
wait. Cap’n sent me up all in a hurry. He’s 
jes’ come in from the Ledge, and hollered to 
me from the tug to send up and get ye. The 
pump’s broke on the big h’ister. A new one ’s 
got to be cast to-night and bored out to-mor- 
rer, if it is Sunday. Cap’n says everything’s 
stopped at the Ledge, and they can’t do another 
stroke till this pump ’s fixed. Were n’t nobody 
home but Betty, and so I come myself. Come 
right along ; he wants ye at the machine shop 
jes’ ’s quick as ye kin git there.” 

Caleb kept his seat and made no reply. Some- 
thing about the shock of discovering who the 
woman was had stunned him. He did not try 


274 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

to explain it to himself ; he was conscious only 
of a vague yet stinging sense of disappointment. 
Automatically, like a trained soldier obeying a 
command, he bent forward in his chair, drew 
his thick shoes from under the stove, slipped 
his feet into them, and silently followed Aunty 
Bell out of the house and down the road. When 
they reached Captain Joe’s gate he looked up 
at Betty’s window. There was no light. 

“ Has Betty gone to bed ? ” he asked quietly. 

“ Yes, more ’n an hour ago. She come home 
late, all tuckered out. I see ’er jes’ before I 
come out. She said she warn’t sick, but she 
would n’t eat nothin’.” 

Caleb paused, looked at her as if he v/ere 
about to speak again, hesitated, then, without 
a word, walked away. 

“ Stubborn as a mule,” said Aunty Bell, look- 
ing after him. “ I ain’t got no patience with 
such men.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE EQUINOCTIAL GALE 

When Sanford arrived at Keyport, a raw, 
southeast gale swept through the deserted 
streets. About the wharves of the village 
itself idle stevedores lounged under dripping 
roofs, watching the cloud-rack and speculating 
on the chances of going to work. Out in the 
harbor the fishing-boats rocked uneasily, their 
long, red pennants flattened against the sky. 
Now and then a frightened sloop came hurry- 
ing in with close-reefed jib, sousing her bow 
under at every plunge. 

Away off in the open a dull gray mist, 
churned up by the tumbling waves, dimmed 
the horizon, blurring here and there a belated 
coaster laboring heavily under bare poles, while 
from Crotch Island way came the roar of the 
pounding surf dashed headlong on the beach. 
The long-expected equinoctial storm was at its 
height. 

So fierce and so searching were the wind 
and rain that Sanford was thoroughly drenched 
when he reached Captain Joe’s cottage. 

F'or the land’s sake, Mr. Sanford, come right 


276 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

in ! Why, ye ’re jest ’s soakin’ as though ye ’d 
fell off the dock. Cap’n said ye was a-comin’, 
but I hoped ye would n’t. I ain’t never see it 
blow so terrible, I don’t know when. Gimme 
that overcoat,” slipping it from his shoulders 
and arms. “ Be yer feet wet ” 

“ Pretty wet, Mrs. Bell. I ’ll go up to my 
room and get some dry socks ” — 

“Ye ain’t a-goin’ to move one step. Set 
right down an’ get them shoes off. I ’ll go for 
the socks myself. I overhauled ’em last week 
with the cap’n’s, and sot a new toe in one o’ 
them. I won’t be a minute! ” she cried, hurry- 
ing out of the room, and returning with heavy 
woolen socks and a white worsted sweater. 

“ Guess ye ’ll want these, too, sir,” she said, 
picking up a pair of slipper^. 

“Where is Captain Joe.^” asked Sanford, as 
he pulled off his wet shoes and stockings and 
moved closer to the fire. It was an every-day 
scene in Aunty Bell’s kitchen, where one half 
of her visitors were wet half the time, and the 
other half wet all the time. 

“I don’t jes’ know. He ain’t been home 
sence Saturday night but jes’ long ’nough to 
change his clothes an’ git a bite to eat. Come 
in from the Ledge Saturday night on the tug 
two hours after the Screamer brought in the 
men, an’ hollered to me to go git Caleb an’ 
come down to the machine shop. You beared 
they broke the pump on the h’istin’-engine, 


277 


THE EQUINOCTIAL GALE 

didn’t ye? They both been a-workin’ on it 
pretty much ever sence.” 

“Not the big hoister?” Sanford exclaimed, 
with a start, turning pale. 

“Well, that’s what the cap’n said, sir. He 
an’ Caleb worked all Saturday night an’ Sun- 
day, an’ got a new castin’ made, an’ bored it out 
yesterday. I told him he would n’t have no 
luck, workin’ on Sunday, but he did n’t pay no 
more ’tention to me than th’ wind a-blowin’. 
It was to be done this mornin’. He was up at 
five, an’ I ain’t seen him sence. Said he was 
goin’ to git to the Ledge in Cap’n Potts’ cat- 
boat, if it mod’rated.” 

“He won’t go,” said Sanford, with a sigh of 
relief now that he knew the break had been 
repaired without delay. “No cat-boat can live 
outside to-day.” 

“Well, all I know is, I beared him tell Lonny 
Bowles to ask Cap’n Potts for it ’fore they went 
out,” she replied, as she hung Sanford’s socks 
on a string especially reserved for such emer- 
gencies. “ Said they had two big cut stone to 
set, an’ they could n’t get a pound o’ steam on 
the Ledge till he brought the pump back.” 

Sanford instinctively looked out of the win- 
dow. The rain beat against the panes. The 
boom of the surf sounded like distant cannon. 

“Ye can’t do nothin’ with him when he gits 
one o’ his spells on, noways,” continued Aunty 
Bell, as she raked out the coals. “Jes’ wait 


278 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

till I grind some fresh coffee, — won’t take a 
minute. Then I ’ll git breakfast for ye.” 

Sanford stepped into the sitting-room, closed 
the door, took off his coat and waistcoat, loos- 
ened his collar, pulled on the sweater, and came 
back into the kitchen, looking like a substitute 
in a game of football. He always kept a stock 
of such dry luxuries in his little room upstairs, 
Aunty Bell looking after them as she did after 
the captain’s, and these rapid changes of dress 
were not unusual. 

“How does Betty get on ” asked Sanford, 
drawing up a chair to the table. The bustling 
little woman was bringing relays of bread, but- 
ter, and other comforts, flitting between the 
pantry and the stove. 

“ Pretty peaked, sir ; ye would n’t know her, 
poor little girl ; it ’d break yer heart to see her,” 
she answered, as she placed a freshly baked 
pie on the table. “ She ’s upstairs now. Cap’n 
wouldn’t let her git up an’ go to work this 
mornin’, it blowed so. That ’s her now a-comin’ 
downstairs.” 

Sanford rose and held out his hand. He had 
not seen Betty since the memorable night when 
she had stood in his hallway, and he had taken 
her to Mrs. Leroy’s. He had been but seldom 
at the captain’s of late, going straight to the 
Ledge from the train, and had always missed 
her. 

Betty started back, and her color came and 


THE EQUINOCTIAL CxALE 


279 


went when she saw who it was. She did n’t 
know anybody was downstairs, she said half 
apologetically, addressing her words to Aunty 
Bell, her eyes averted from Sanford’s face. 

“Why, Betty, I ’m glad to see you!” ex- 
claimed Sanford in a cheery tone, his mind 
going back to Mrs. Leroy’s admonition. 

Betty raised her eyes with a timid, furtive 
glance, her face flushed scarlet, but, reading 
Sanford’s entire sincerity in his face, she laid 
her hand in his, saying it was a bad day, and 
that she hoped he was not wet. Then she 
turned to help Mrs. Bell with the table. 

Sanford watched her slight figure and care- 
worn face as she moved about the room — hardly 
a trace in them of the Betty of old. When 
Aunty Bell had gone down into the cellar, he 
called Betty to him and said in a low voice, “ I 
have a message for you.” 

She turned quickly, as if anticipating some 
unwelcome revelation. 

“ Mrs. Leroy told me to give you her love.” 

Betty’s eyes filled. “Is that what she said, 
Mr. Sanford.^” 

“Every word, Betty, and she'means it all.” 

The girl stood fingering the handles of the 
knives she had just laid upon the cloth. After 
a pause, Sanford’s eyes still upon her face, she 
answered slowly, with a pathos that went straight 
home to his heart : — 

“Tell her, please, sir, that I thank her so 


28 o CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

much, and that I never forget her. I am trying , 
so hard — so hard — I promised her I would. 
You don’t know, Mr. Sanford, — nobody won’t 
never know how good she was to me. If I ’d 
been her sister she could n’t ’a’ done no more.” 

It was but a slight glimpse of the girl’s real 
nature, but it settled for Sanford all the misgiv- 
ings he had had. It sent a quiver through him, 
too, as his mind reverted to Kate’s own ac- 
count of the interview. He was about to tell 
her of Mrs. Leroy’s expected arrival at Medford, 
and urge her to go over some Sunday, when 
Aunty Bell bustled in with a covered dish. 

“ Corne, child,” she said, “ sit right down 
alongside o’ Mr. Sanford an’ git your breakfast. 
You ain’t eat a morsel yet.” 

There were no seats of honor and no second 
table in this house, except for those who came 
late. 

Here a sharp, quick knock sounded on the 
outer door, and in stalked Captain Bob Brandt, 
six feet or more of wet oilskins, the rain drip- 
ping from his sou’wester, his rosy, good-natured 
face peering out from under the puckered 
brim. 

“Cap’n Joe sent me down to the station for 
ye, sir, in case ye come, but I missed ye, some- 
how. Mr. Carleton was on the platform, an’ 
said he see ye git off. Guess ye must ’a’ come 
cross lots.” 

“ Did Mr. Carleton mention anything about 


THE EQUINOCTIAL GALE 281 

receiving a telegram from me, saying I wanted 
to see him ? ” inquired Sanford, as he shook the 
skipper’s hand. 

“ Yes, sir ; said he knew yer was cornin’, but 
that he was goin’ over to Medford till the storm 
was over.” 

Sanford’s brow knit. Carleton had evidently 
avoided him. 

“Did he leave any message or letter with 
Captain Joe ? ” Sanford asked, after a pause. 
He still hoped that the coveted certificate had 
finally been signed. 

“Guess not, sir. Don’t think he see ’im. 
I suppose ye know Cap’n Joe ’s gone to the 
Ledge with the new pump } ” 

“ Not in this storm ? ” cried Sanford, a look 
of alarm overspreading his face. 

“ Yes, sir, half an hour ago, in Cap’n Potts’ 
Dolly. I watched ’em till they run under the 
P’int, then I come for you ; guess that ’s what 
got me late. She was under double reefs then, 
an’ a-smashin’ things for all she was worth. I 
tell ye, ’t ain’t no good place out there for no- 
body, not even Cap’n Joe.” As he spoke he 
took off his hat and thrashed the water from it 
against the jamb of the door. “ No, thank ye, 
ma’am,” with a wave of his hand in answer to 
Mrs. Bell’s gesture to sit down opposite Betty. 
“ I had breakfast ’board the Screamer.” 

“Who ’s with him ? ” exclaimed Sanford, now 
really uneasy. Captain Joe’s personal safety 


282 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

was worth more to him than the completion 
of a dozen lighthouses. 

“ Caleb and Lonny Bowles. They ’d go 
anywheres cap’n told ’em. He was holdin’ 
tiller when I see him last ; Caleb layin’ back on 
the sheet and Lonny bailin’. Cap’n said he 
would n’t ’a’ risked it, only we was behind an’ 
he did n’t want ye worried. I ’m kind’er sorry 
they started ; it ain’t no picnic out there, I tell 
ye.” 

Betty gave an anxious look at Aunty Bell. 

‘Hs it a very bad storm, Cap’n Brandt.?” 
she asked, almost in a whisper. 

“ Wust I ever see. Mis’ West, since I worked 
round here,” nodding kindly to Betty as he 
spoke, his face lighting up. He had always 
believed in her because the captain had taken 
her home. “ Everything cornin’ in under dou- 
ble reefs, — them that is a-comin’ in. They 
say two o’ them Lackawanna coal-barges went 
adrift at daylight an’ come ashore at Crotch 
Island. Had two men drownded, I hear.” 

“ Who told you that .? ” asked Sanford. The 
news only increased his anxiety. 

“The cap’n of the tow line, sir. He’s just 
telegraphed to New Haven for a big wreckin’- 
tug.” 

Sanford told Captain Brandt to wait, ran up- 
stairs two steps at a time, and reappeared in 
long rubber boots and mackintosh. 

“ I ’ll walk up toward the lighthouse and find 


THE EQUINOCTIAL GALE 


283 

^out how they are getting on, Mrs. Bell,” he 
said. “We can see them from the lantern 
deck. Come, Captain Brandt, I want you with 
me.” A skilled seaman like the skipper might 
be needed before the day was over. 

Betty and Aunty Bell looked after them 
until they had swung back the garden gate 
with its clanking ball and chain, and had turned 
to breast the gale in their walk of a mile or 
more up the shore road. 

“ Oh, aunty,” said Betty, with a tremor in 
her voice, all the blood gone from her face, 
“ do you think anything will happen } ” 

“Not ’s long’s Cap’n Joe’s aboard, child. 
He ain’t a-takin’ no risks he don’t know all 
about. Ye needn’t worry a mite. Set down 
an’ finish yer breakfas’. I believe Mr. Sanford 
ain’t done more ’n swallow his coffee,” she 
added, with a pitying look, as she inspected his 
plate. 

The fact that her husband was exposed in an 
open boat to the fury of a southeaster made no 
more impression upon her mind than if he had 
been reported asleep upstairs. She knew there 
was no storm the captain could not face. 


CHAPTER XIX 


FROM THE LANTERN DECK 

Tony Marvin, the keeper of Keyport Light, 
was in his little room next the fog-horn when 
Sanford and the skipper, wet and glistening as 
two seals, knocked at the outer door of his 
quarters. 

“Well, I want to know!” broke out Tony 
in his bluff, hearty way, as he opened the door. 
“ Come in, — come in ! Nice weather for 
ducks, ain’t it ? Sunthin’ ’s up, or you fellers 
would n’t be out to-day,” leading the way to his 
room. “Anybody drownded ” he asked face- 
tiously, stopping for a moment on the threshold. 

“ Not yet, Tony,” said Sanford in a serious 
tone. He had known the keeper for years, — 
had, in fact, helped him get his appointment at 
the Light. “ But I ’m worried about Captain 
Joe and Caleb.” He opened his coat, and 
walked across the room to a bench set against 
the whitewashed wall, little streams of water 
following him as he moved. “Did you see 
them go by ? They ’re in Captain Potts’s 
Dolly Varden.” 

“Gosh hang, no! Ye ain’t never tellin’ me. 


FROM THE LANTERN DECK 285 

be ye, that the cap’n ’s gone to the Ledge in 
all this smother? And that fool Caleb with 
him, too ? ” 

‘‘Yes, and Lonny Bowles," interrupted the 
skipper. As he spoke he pulled off one of his 
water-logged boots- and poured the contents 
into a fire-bucket standing against the wall. 

“ How long since they started ? " asked the 
keeper anxiously, taking down his spyglass 
' from a rack above the buckets. 

“ Half an hour ago." 

“ Then they ’re this side of Crotch Island 
yit, if they ’re anywheres. Let ’s go up to the 
lantern. Mebbe we can see ’em,” he said, un- 
latching the door of the tower. “ Better leave 
them boots behind, Mr. Sanford, and shed yer 
coat. A feller’s knees git purty tired climbin’ 
these steps, when he ain’t used to ’t ; there ’s 
a hundred and ten of ’em. Here, try these 
slippin’s of mine," and he kicked a pair of slip- 
pers from under a chair. “ Guess they ’ll fit 
ye. Seems to me Caleb ’s been doin’ his best 
to git drownded since that high-flyer of a gal 
left him. He come by here daylight, one 
mornin’ awhile ago, in a sharpie that you would 
n’t cross a creek in, and it ^blowin’ half a gale. 
I ain’t surprised o’ nothin’ in Caleb, but Cap’n 
Joe ought’er have more sense. What ’s he 
goin’ for, anyhow, to-day ? ” he grumbled, as 
Sanford drew on the slippers and placed his 
foot on the first iron step of the spiral staircase. 


286 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ He ’s taken the new pump with him,” said 
Sanford, as he followed the keeper up the wind- 
ing steps, the skipper close behind. They 
broke the old pump on Saturday, and every- 
thing is stopped on the Ledge. Captain knows 
we Te behind, and he does n’t want to lose an 
hour. But it was a foolish venture. He had 
no business to risk his life in a blow like this, 
Tony.” There was a serious tone in Sanford’s 
voice which quickened the keeper’s step. 

What good is the pump to him, if he does 
get it there ? Men can’t work to-day,” Tony 
answered. He was now a dozen steps ahead, 
his voice sounding hollow in the reverberations 
of the round tower. 

“ Oh, that ain’t a-goin’ to stop us ! ” shouted 
the skipper from below, resting a moment to 
get his breath as he spoke. “ We ’ve got the 
masonry clean out o’ water ; we 're all right if 
Cap’n Joe can git steam on the hoist er.” 

The keeper, whose legs had become as sup- 
ple as a squirrel’s in the five years he had 
climbed up and down these stairs, reached the 
lantern deck some minutes ahead of the others. 
He was wiping the sweat from the lantern 
glass with a clean white cloth, and drawing 
back the day curtains so that they might see 
better, when Sanford’s head appeared above 
the lens deck. 

Once upon the iron floor of the deck, the 
roar of the wind and the dash of the rain, 


FROM THE LANTERN DECK 287 

which had been deadened by the thick walls of 
the structure surrounding the staircase below, 
burst upon them seemingly with increased fury. 
A tremulous, swaying motion was plainly felt. 
A novice would have momentarily expected the 
structure to measure its length on the rocks 
below. Above the roar of the storm could be 
heard, at intervals, the thunder of the surf 
breaking on Crotch Island beach. 

Gosh A’mighty ! ” exclaimed the keeper, 
adjusting the glass, which he had carried up 
in his hand. ‘‘ It ’s a-humpin’ things, and no 
mistake. See them rollers break on Crotch 
Island,” and he swept his glass around. I 
see ’em. There they are, — three o’ them. 
There’s Cap’n Joe, — ain’t no mistakin’ him. 
He’s got his cap on, same’s he allers wears. 
And there ’s Caleb ; his beard ’s a-flyin’ straight 
out. Who ’s that in the red flannen shirt } ” 
‘‘Lonny Bowles,” said the skipper. 

Yes, that ’s Bowles. He’s a-bailin’ for all 
he’s worth. Cap’n Joe’s got the tiller and 
Caleb ’s a-hangin’ on the sheet. Here, Mr. 
Sanford,” and he held out the glass, “ye kin 
see ’em plain ’s day.” 

Sanford waved the glass away. The keeper’s 
eyes, he said, were better accustomed to scan- 
ning a scene like this. He himself could see 
the Dolly, a mile or more this side of Crotch 
Island Point, and nearly two miles away from 
where the three watchers stood. She was hug- 


288 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


ging the inside shore-line, her sail close-reefed. 
He could even make out the three figures, which 
were but so many black dots beaded along her 
gunwale. All about the staggering boat seethed 
the gray sea, mottled in wavy lines of foam. 
Over this circled white gulls, shrieking as they 
flew. 

“He ’s gittin’ ready to go about,” continued 
the keeper, his eye still to the glass. “ I see 
Caleb shiftin’ his seat. They know they can’t 
make the P’int on that leg. Jiminy-whiz, but 
it ’s soapy out there ! See ’er take that roller ! 
Gosh!” 

The boat careened, the dots crowded to- 
gether, and the Dolly bore away from the 
shore. It was evidently Captain Joe’s inten- 
tion to give Crotch Island Point a wide berth 
and then lay a straight course for the Ledge, 
now barely visible through the haze, the der- 
ricks and masonry alone showing clear above 
the fringe of breaking surf tossed white against 
the dull gray sky. 

All eyes were now fixed on the Dolly. Three 
times she laid a course toward the Ledge, and 
three times she was forced back behind the 
island. 

“ They ’ve got to give it up,” said the keeper, 
laying down his glass. “ That tide cuts round 
that ’ere P’int like a mill-tail, to say nothin’ o’ 
them smashers that ’s rollin’ in. How she 
keeps afloat out there is what beats me.” 


FROM THE LANTERN DECK 289 

‘'She wouldn’t if Cap’n Joe wasn’t at the 
tiller,’* said the skipper, with a laugh. “Ye 
can’t drown him no more ’n a water-rat.” He 
had an abiding faith in Captain Joe almost as 
great as that of Aunty Bell. 

Sanford’s face brightened. An overwhelm- 
ing anxiety for the safety of the endangered 
men had strangely, almost unaccountably un- 
nerved him. It was some comfort to feel Cap- 
tain Brandt’s confidence in Captain Joe’s ability 
to meet the situation ; for that little cockle-shell 
battling before him as if for its very life — one 
moment on top of a mountain of water, and the 
next buried out of sight — held between its frail 
sides not only two of the best men whom he 
knew, but really two of the master spirits of 
their class. One of them. Captain Joe, Sanford 
admired more than any other man, loving him, 
too, as he had loved but few. 

With a smile to the skipper, he looked off 
again toward the sea. He saw the struggling 
boat make a fourth attempt to clear the Point, 
and in the movement lurch wildly ; he saw, too, 
that her long boom was swaying from side to 
side. Through the driving spray he made out 
that two of the dots were trying to steady it. 
The third dot was standing in the stern. 

Here some new movement caught his eye. 
He strained his neck forward ; then taking the 
glass from the skipper watched the little craft 
intently. 


290 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“There’s something the matter,” he said 
nervously, after a moment’s pause. “ That ’s 
Captain Joe waving to one of those two smacks 
out there scudding in under close reefs. Look 
yourself; am I right, Tony.^” and he passed 
the glass to the keeper again. 

“Looks like it, sir,” replied Tony in a low 
tone, the end of the glass fixed on the tossing 
boat. “The smack sees ’em now, sir. She’s 
goin’ about.” 

The fishing-smack careened, fluttered in the 
wind like a baffled pigeon, and bore across to 
the plunging boat. 

“The spray’s a-flyin’ so ye can’t see clear, 
sir,” said the keeper, his eye still at the glass. 
“ She ain’t actin’ right, somehow ; that boom 
seems to bother ’em. Cap’n Joe ’s runnin’ 
for’ard. Gosh ! that one went clean over ’er. 
Look out ! Look out ! ” in quick crescendo, as 
if the endangered crew could have heard him. 
“ See ’er take ’em ! There ’s another went clean 
across. My God, Mr. Sanford ! she ’s over, — 
capsized ! ” 

Sanford made a rush for the staircase, a rash, 
unreasonable impulse to help taking possession of 
him. The keeper caught him firmly by the arm. 

“Come back, sir! You’re only wastin’ yer 
breath. That smack’ll get ’em.” 

Captain Brandt picked up the glass that the 
keeper had dropped. His hands shook so he 
could hardly adjust the lens. 


FROM THE LANTERN DECK 


291 


“ The boom ’s broke,” he said in a trembling 
voice ; “ that ’s what ails ’em. She ’s bottom 
side up. Lord, if she ain’t a- wallowin’ ! I 
never ’spected to see Cap’n Joe in a hole like 
that. They ’re all three in th’ water ; ain’t a 
man livin’ can swim ashore in that sea ! Why 
don’t that blamed smack go about ? They ’ll 
sink ’fore she can get to ’em. Where’s the 
cap’n ? He ain’t come up yet. There ’s Lonny 
and Caleb, but I don’t see Cap’n Joe nowhere.” 

Sanford leaned against the brass rail of the 
great lens, his eyes on the fishing-smack swoop- 
ing down to the rescue. The helplessness of 
his position, his absolute inability to help the 
drowning men, overwhelmed him : Captain Joe 
and Caleb perishing before his eyes, and he 
powerless to lift a hand. 

“ Do you see the captain anywhere he 
asked, with an effort at self-control. The words 
seemed to clog his throat. . 

“ Not yet, sir, but there ’s Lonny, and there ’s 
Caleb. You look, Mr. Marvin,” he said, turn- 
ing to the keeper. He could not trust himself 
any longer. For the first time his faith in Cap- 
tain Joe had failed him. 

Marvin held the glass to his eye and covered 
the boat. He hardly dared breathe. 

“Can’t see but two, sir.” His voice was 
broken and husky. “ Can’t make out the cap’n 
nowheres. Something must ’a’ struck him an’ 
stunned him. My — my — ain’t it a shame for 


292 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

him to cut up a caper like this ! I allers told 
Cap’n Joe he ’d get hurted in some foolish kick- 
up. Why in hell don’t them other fellers do 
something } If they don’t look out, the Dolly ’ll 
drift so far they ’ll lose him, — standin’ there 
like two dummies an’ lettin’ a man drown ! 
Lord ! Lord ! ain’t it too bad ! ” The keeper’s 
eyes filled. Everything was dim before him. 

The skipper sank on the oil-chest and bowed 
his head. Sanford’s hands were over his face. 
If the end had come, he did not want to see it. 

The small, close lantern became as silent as 
a death-chamber. The keeper, his back against 
the lens rail, folded his arms across his chest 
and stared out to sea. His face bore the look 
of one watching a dying man. Sanford did 
not move. His thoughts were on Aunty Bell. 
What should he say to her.^^ Was there not 
something he could have done } Should he 
not, after all, have hailed the first tug in the 
harbor and gone in search of them before it 
was too late ? 

The seconds dragged. The silence in its 
intensity became unbearable. With a deep in- 
drawn sigh. Captain Brandt turned toward San- 
ford and touched him. “ Come away,” he said, 
with the tenderness of one strong man who 
suffers and is stirred with greater sorrow by 
another’s grief. “ This ain’t no place for you, 
Mr. Sanford. Come away.” 

Sanford raised his eyes and was about to 


FROM THE LANTERN DECK 


293 


speak, when the keeper threw up his arms with 
a joyous shout and seized the glass. “There 
he is ! I see his cap ! That ’s Cap’n Joe ! 
He’s holdin’ up his hands. Caleb’s crawlin’ 
along the bottom ; he ’s reachin’ down an’ haul- 
in’ Cap’n Joe up. Now he’s on ’er keel.” 

Sanford and Captain Brandt sprang to their 
feet, crowding close to the lantern glass, their 
eyes fastened on the Dolly. Sanford’s hands 
were trembling. Hot, quick tears rolled down 
his cheeks and dropped from his chin. The 
joyful news had unnerved him more than the 
horror of the previous moments. There was 
no doubt of its truth ; he could see, even with 
the naked eye, the captain lying flat on the 
boat’s keel. He thought he could follow every 
line of his body, — never so precious as now. 

“ He ’s all right,” he said in a dazed way — 
“ all right — all right,” repeating it mechanically 
over and over to himself, as a child would do. 
Then he turned and laid his hand on the 
keeper’s shoulder. 

“ Thank God, Tony ! Thank God ! ” 

The keeper’s hand closed tight in Sanford’s. 
For a moment he did not speak. 

“ Almighty close shave, sir,” he said slowly 
in a broken whisper, looking into Sanford’s, 
eyes. 

Captain Brandt’s face was radiant. “ Might 
a’ knowed he ’d come up some’ers, sir. 
Did n’t I tell ye, ye could n’t drown him } But 


294 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

where in thunder has he been under water all 
this time ? ” he asked, with a laugh that had 
the unshed tears of a strong man in it, and the 
exultation of one just recovered from a fright 
that had almost unnerved him. The laugh not 
only expressed his joy at the great relief, but 
carried with it a reminder that he had never 
seriously doubted the captain’s ability to save 
himself. 

All eyes were now fastened on the rescuing 
smack. As she swept past the capsized boat, 
her crew leaned far over the side, reached down 
and caught two of the shipwrecked men, leav- 
ing one man still clinging to the keel, the sea 
breaking over him every moment. Sanford 
took the glass, and saw that this man was 
Lonny Bowles, and that Captain Joe, now safe 
aboard the smack, was waving his cap to the 
second smack, which hove to in answer. Pre- 
sently the hailed smack rounded in, lowered 
her mainsail, and hauled Lonny aboard. She 
then took the overturned Dolly in tow, and 
made at once for the harbor. When this was 
done, the first smack, with Captain Joe and 
Caleb on board, shook a reef from its mainsail, 
turned about, and despite the storm laid a 
straight course back to the Ledge. 

This daring and apparently hopeless attempt 
of Captain Joe to carry out his plan of going to 
the Ledge awoke a new anxiety in Sanford. 
There was no longer the question of personal 


FROM THE LANTERN DECK 


295 

danger to the captain or the men ; the fishing- 
smack was, of course, a better sea boat than the 
Dolly, but why make the trip at all when the 
pump had been lost from the overturned boat, 
and no one could land at the Ledge ? Even 
from where they all stood in the lantern they 
could see the big rollers flash white as they 
broke over the enrockment blocks, the spray 
drenching the tops of the derricks. No small 
boat could live in such a sea, — not even the 
life-boat at the Ledge. 

As the incoming smack drew near, Sanford, 
followed by the keeper and Captain Brandt, 
hurried down the spiral staircase and into the 
keeper’s room below, where they drew on their 
coats and heavy boots, and made their way to 
the lighthouse dock. 

When she came within hailing distance. Cap- 
tain Brandt mounted a spile and shouted above 
the roar of the gale, “ Bowles, ahoy ! Anybody 
hurt, Lonny ? ” 

A man in a red shirt detached himself from 
among the group of men huddled in the smack’s 
bow, stepped on the rail, and, putting his hands 
to his mouth, trumpeted back, “ No ! ” 

What ’s the cap’n gone to the Ledge for ? ” 

‘‘ Gone to set the pump ! ” 

“Thought the pump was lost overboard!” 
cried Sanford. 

“No, sir; cap’n dived under the Dolly an’ 
found it catched fast, an’ Caleb hauled it aboard, 


296 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Cap’n tol’ me to tell ye that he ’d hev it set all 
right to-day, blow or no ” — The last words 
were lost in the wind. 

Ain’t that jes’ like the cap’n ” shouted the 
keeper, with a loud laugh, slapping his thigh 
with his hand. “ That ’s where he was when 
we thought he was drownded, — he was a-divin’ 
fer that pump. Land o’ Moses, ain’t he a good 
un ! ” 

Captain Brandt said nothing, but a smile of 
happy pride overspread his face. Captain Joe 
was still his hero. 

Sanford spent the afternoon between Aunty 
Bell’s kitchen and the paraphernalia dock, strain- 
ing his eyes seaward in search of an incoming 
smack which would bring the captain. The 
wind had shifted to the northwest, sweeping out 
the fog and piling the low clouds in heaps. 
The rain had ceased, and a dash of pale lemon 
light shone above the blue-gray sea. 

About sundown his quick eye detected a tiny 
sail creeping in behind Crotch Island. As it 
neared the harbor and he made out the lines of 
the fishing-smack of the morning, a warm glow 
tingled through him ; it would not be long now 
before he had his hands on Captain Joe. 

When the smack came bowling into the har- 
bor under double reefs, her wind-blown jib a 
cup, her sail a saucer, and rounded in as grace- 
ful as a skater on the outer edge, Sanford’s 


FROM THE LANTERN DECK 297 

hand was the first that touched the captain’s 
as he sprang from the smack’s deck to the 
dock. 

“Captain Joe,” he said. His voice broke as 
he spoke ; all his love was in his eyes. “ Don’t 
ever do that again. I saw it all from the light- 
house lantern. You have no right to risk your 
life this way.” 

“’T ain’t nothin’, Mr. Sanford.” His great 
hand closed tight over that of the young engi- 
neer. “It ’s all right now, and the pump ’s 
screwed fast. Caleb had steam up on the h’ister 
when I left him on the Ledge. Boom on the 
Dolly had n’t ’a’ broke short off out there, we ’d 
’a’ been there sooner.” 

“ We thought you were gone, once,” continued 
Sanford, his voice full of anxiety, still holding 
to the captain’s hand as they walked toward 
the house. 

“ Not in the Dolly, sir,” the captain answered 
in an apologetic tone, as if he wanted to atone 
for the suffering he had caused his friend. 
“ She ’s got wood enough in ’er to float any- 
wheres. That ’s what I took ’er out for.” 

Aunty Bell met them at the kitchen door. 

“ I hearn ye was overboard,” she said quietly, 
no more stirred over the day’s experience than 
if some child had stepped into a puddle and had 
come in for a change of shoes. “Ye ’re wet 
yet, be n’t ye ? ” patting his big chest to make 
sure. 


298 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ Yes, guess so,” he answered carelessly, feel- 
ing his own arms as if to satisfy himself as to 
the reason of his wife’s inquiry. Got a dry 
shirt } ” 

“ Yes ; got everything hangin’ there on a chair 
’fore the kitchen fire,” and she closed the door 
upon him and Sanford. 

“ Beats all, Mr. Sanford, don’t it } ” the cap- 
tain continued in short sentences, broken by 
breathless pauses, as he stripped off his wet 
clothes before the blazing fire, one jerk for the 
suspenders, another for the trousers, Sanford, 
jubilant over the captain’s safety and eager to 
do him any service, handing him the dry gar- 
ments one after another. 

“ Beats all, I say ; don’t it, now } There ’s 
that Cap’n Potts : been a seaman, man an’ boy, 
all his life,” — here the grizzled wet head was 
hidden for a moment as a clean flannel shirt 
was drawn over it, — “yet he ain’t got sense 
’nough to keep a boom from rottin’ ’board a 
cat-boat,” — the head was up now, and Sanford, 
fumbling under the chin whisker, was helping 
the captain with the top button, — “ an’ snap- 
pin’ square off in a little gale o’ wind like that. 
There, thank ye, guess that ’ll do.” 

When he had seated himself in his chair, his 
sturdy legs — stout and tough as two dock-logs 
— stretched out before the fire, his rough hands 
spread to the blaze, warming the big, strong 
body that had been soaking wet for ten consec- 


FROM THE LANTERN DECK 299 

utive hours, Sanford took a seat beside him, 
and, laying his hand on his knee, said in a 
gentle voice, Why did you risk your life for 
that pump. Captain Joe ? ” 

‘‘’Cause she acted so durned ornery,” he 
blurted out in an angry tone. “ Jes’ see what 
she did : gin out night ’fore last jes’ ’s we was 
gittin’ ready to h’ist that big stretcher ; kep’ me 
an’ Caleb up two nights a-castin’ an’ borin’ on 
’er out ; then all of a sudden she thought she ’d 
upset an’ fool us. I tell ye, ye ’ve got to take 
hold of a thing like that good an’ early, or it ’ll 
git away with ye.” 

One hand was swung high over his head as 
if it had been a sledge-hammer. 

“ Now she ’ll stay put till I git through with 
her. I ain’t a-goin’ to let no damned pump beat 


CHAPTER XX 


AT THE PINES 

The Indian summer days had come, — soft, 
dreamy days of red and gold, with veils of 
silver mist at sunrise, and skeins of purple 
clouds at twilight. The air was hazy with the 
smoke of dull fires smouldering on the hill- 
side. The stems of the bare birches shone 
white ; wreaths of scarlet crowned the low 
stone walls ; dead leaves strewed the lawns, 
and tall chrysanthemums flamed in the garden- 
beds. Here and there a belated summer rose, 
braving the cold, shivered with close-folded lips, 
or hung head down, pierced by the night-frost. 

Sanford had shifted his quarters from the 
little room over Captain Joe’s kitchen to the 
big east room at The Pines, opening out upon a 
wide balcony, from which he could see with his 
glass the feathers of white steam on the Ledge. 
His apartments in Washington Square had 
been closed, and Sam ordered to join his mas- 
ter at Keyport, where he found himself pro- 
moted from the position of man-of-all-work to 
that of valet-in-chief, with especial instructions 
to report daily to Buckles, who grew more 


AT THE PINES 


301 


reticent and imposing by reason of the added 
charge. 

And with the dreamy days came Helen and 
Jack ; Smearly with a big canvas, which he 
never afterward touched ; and the major, with 
a nondescript wardrobe, as curious as it was 
astonishing. 

To Helen The Pines was a land of romance 
and charm. She had been brought up in the 
country, and loved its quiet, the rest of its shady 
lanes and cool woods, and the life it brought. 
The city had charmed her at first. She liked 
its novelty, its theatres, galleries, and crowded 
streets, but long before her visit in town was 
done, she had begun to sigh for green fields, 
and rose gardens, and the freedom of her young 
days at home. She had passed the summer 
with her school friends. Jack spending his 
Sundays with her whenever he could manage 
an invitation. But the homes of her friends 
had been simple ones, with none of the luxury 
and comfort and the poetry of The Pines. 

Mrs. Leroy had begun at once on her arrival 
to carry out her promise to give the young 
Maryland girl one more good time before that 
“Bluebeard Jack bound her hand and foot.” 
She had done this as much from a sincere in- 
terest in Helen, as from a sense of duty to 
Jack and Sanford. She had not, as yet, com- 
pletely won the girl’s confidence. The talk 
with Smearly, in which Mrs. Leroy had cried 


302 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

out against the marriage relation, still lingered 
in Helen’s mind. Its last impression wore 
away only when Kate had taken her out on the 
lawn, on the second morning of her visit, to 
show her a secluded summer-house smothered 
in climbing vines and overlooking the water. 

‘‘This is for you and Jack,” she had said, 
with a merry twinkle in her eye and a depth 
of tenderness in her tone. “And for nobody 
else, dear. Not a soul will be able to find you.” 
Though Helen had laughed and said that she 
and Jack had been engaged too long to need 
such retirement, every succeeding morning 
had found them there, oblivious to the outside 
world until aroused by a peculiar shuffling 
sound on the gravel, followed by a warning 
cough. 

“Lunch ready, Marse Jack, — so de waiter- 
man says.” 

It was always Sam, — his face as full of 
smiles as a suddenly disturbed puddle is of 
ripples. 

But if The Pines was an enchanted realm to 
Helen and Jack, a refreshing retreat to San- 
ford, and a mine of luxury to Smearly, to the 
major it was a never ending source of pure 
delight. 

Until that day on which he had stepped 
within its portals, his experience of Northern 
hospitality had been confined to Jack’s and 
Sanford’s bachelor apartments, for years ideal 


AT THE PINES 


303 


realms of elegance and ease. These now 
seemed to him both primitive and meagre. 
Where Jack had but one room to spare for a 
friend, and Sanford but two, The Pines had 
whole suites opening into corridors terminat- 
ing in vistas of entrancing lounging-places, 
with marvelous fittings and draperies. Where 
Sam and Jefferson, in their respective estab- 
lishments, performed unaided every household 
duty, from making a cocktail to making a bed. 
The Pines boasted two extra men, who assisted 
Buckles at the sideboard, to say nothing of 
countless maids, gardeners, hostlers, stable- 
boys, and lesser dependents. 

Moreover, the major had come upon a most 
capacious carriage-house and out-buildings, 
sheltering a wonderful collection of drags, 
coupes, and phaetons of patterns never seen 
by him before, — particularly a most surpris- 
ing dog-cart with canary-colored wheels ; and 
a stable full of satin-skinned horses with in- 
credible pedigrees, together with countless 
harnesses mounted in silver, and decorated 
with monograms. Last, but by no means 
least, he had discovered, to his infinite joy, a 
spick-and-span perfectly appointed steam yacht, 
with sailing-master, engineer, firemen, and 
crew constantly on board, and all ready, at a 
moment’s notice, to steam off to the uttermost 
parts of the earth in search of booty or adven- 
ture. 


304 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

The major had found, in fact, all that his 
wildest flights and his most mendacious ima- 
ginings had pictured. The spacious piazzas, 
velvet lawns, and noble parks of which he had 
so often boasted as being “upon the estate 
of a ve’y dear friend of mine up No’th, suh, 
where I spend so many happy days ; " the 
wonderful cuisine, fragrant Havanas, crusty 
port and old Hennessy, — the property as well 
of this diaphanous gentleman, — had at last be- 
come actual realities. The women of charm- 
ing mien and apparel, so long creations of his 
brain, — “ Dianas, suh, clothed one hour in 
yachtin’-jackets, caps, and dainty yellow shoes, 
and the next in webs of gossamer, their lovely 
faces shaded by ravishin’ pa’asols and crowned 
by wonderful hats,” — now floated daily along 
the very gravel walks that his own feet pressed, 
or were attended nightly by gay gallants in 
immaculate black and white, whose elbows 
touched his own. 

Of all these luxuries had he dreamed for 
years, and about all these luxuries had he lied, 
descanting on their glories by the hour to that 
silent group of thirsty Pocomokians before the 
village bar, or to the untraveled neighbors who 
lightened with their presence the lonely hours 
at Crab Island. But never until Mrs. Leroy 
had opened wide to him the portals of The 
Pines had they been real to his sight and 
touch. 


AT THE PINES 


305 


It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that 
with the flavor of all this magnificence steep- 
ing his soul a gradual change took place in his 
tone and demeanor. Before a week had passed 
he had somehow persuaded himself that al- 
though the lamp of Aladdin was exclusively the 
property of Mrs. Leroy, the privilege of rub- 
bing it was unquestionably his own. Gradu- 
ally, and by the same mental process, he had 
become convinced that he was not only firmly 
installed in the Leroy household as High Rub- 
ber-in-Chief, the master of the house being 
temporarily absent, . and there being no one 
else to fill his place, but that the office, if not 
a life position, at least would last long enough 
to tide him over until cold weather set in. 

At first Mrs. Leroy looked on in amazement, 
and then, as the humor of the situation dawned 
upon her, gave him free rein to do as he would. 
Months ago she had seen through his harm- 
less assumptions, and his present pretensions 
amused her immensely. 

“ My dear madam,” he would say, “ I see the 
lines of care about yo’r lovely eyes. Let me 
take you a spin down the shell road in that 
yaller cyart. It will bring the roses back to 
your cheeks.” Or, “ Sanford, my dear fellow, 
try one of those Reina Victorias ; you 11 find 
them much lighter. Buckles, open a fresh 
box.” 

It is worthy of note, too, that when once the 


3o6 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

surprise at the novelty of the situation had 
passed away, his hostess soon realized that no 
one could have filled the post of major-domo 
to better satisfaction. The same qualities that 
served him at Crab Island, making him the best 
of cofnpany when off on an outing with the 
boys, were displayed in even greater perfection 
at The Pines. He was courteous, good-hu- 
mored, unselfish, watchful of everybody’s com- 
fort, buoyant as a rubber ball, and ultimately 
so self-poised that even Buckles began to stand 
in awe of him, — a victory, by the way, which 
so delighted Jack Hardy that he rolled over 
on the grass with shouts of laughter when he 
discussed it with Sanford and Smearly. 

Nor were the greater duties neglected. He 
was constantly on the lookout for various de- 
vices by which his hostess might be relieved 
in the care of her guests. Tennis tournaments, 
fishing parties, and tableaux followed in quick 
succession, each entertainment the result of 
his ingenious activity and his untiring efforts 
at making everybody happy. 

This daily routine of gayety was interrupted 
by the important announcement that a com- 
mittee of engineers, headed by General Bar- 
ton, would inspect the work at Shark Ledge. 

This visit of the engineers meant to Sanford 
a possible solution of his difficulties. Carleton 
still withheld the certificate, and the young 
engineer had had the greatest difficulty in tid- 


AT THE PINES 


307 


ing over his payments. A second and last 
section of the work was nearly completed, 
thanks to the untiring efforts of Captain Joe 
and his men and to the stability of the machin- 
ery, and there was every probability that now 
these two sections would be finished before 
the snow began to fly. This had been the 
main purpose of Sanford’s summer, and the 
end was in sight. And yet, with all that had 
been accomplished, Sanford knew that a tech- 
nical ruling of the Board in sustaining Carle- 
ton’s unjust report when rejecting the work 
might delay his payments for months, and if 
prolonged through the winter might eventually 
ruin him. 

The inspection, then, was all the more im- 
portant at this time ; for while the solidity of 
the masonry and the care with which it was 
constructed would speak for themselves, the 
details must be seen and inspected to be appre- 
ciated. If the day, therefore, were fine and the 
committee able to land on the Ledge, Sanford 
had no fear of the outcome, — provided, of 
course, that Carleton could be made to speak 
the truth. 

There was no question that parts of the work 
as they then stood were in open violation of the 
plans and specifications of the contract. The 
concrete base, or disk, was acknowledged by 
Sanford to be six inches out of level. This 
error was due to the positive orders of Carleton 


3o8 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

against the equally positive protest of Sanford 
and Captain Joe. But the question still re- 
mained, whether the Board would sustain Carle- 
ton’s refusal to give a certificate in view of the 
error, and whether Carleton could be made 
to adihit that the error was his own, and not 
Sanford’s. 

So far as the permanence of the structure 
was concerned, this six inches’ rise over so 
large an area as the base was immaterial. The 
point — a vital one — was whether the techni- 
cal requirements of the contract would be in- 
sisted upon. Its final decision lay with the 
Board. 

To Mrs. Leroy the occasion was one of more 
than usual importance. She sent for the sail- 
ing-master, ordered steam up at an early hour, 
gave Sam — Buckles had assigned Sam to cer- 
tain duties aboard the yacht — particular di- 
rections as to luncheon the following day, and 
prepared to entertain the whole committee, 
provided that august body could be induced to 
accept the invitation she meant to extend. She 
had already selected General Barton as her 
especial victim, while Helen was to make her- 
self agreeable to some of the younger members. 

The value of linen, glass, cut flowers, dry 
champagne, and pretty toilettes in settling any 
of the affairs of life was part of her social train- 
ing, and while she did not propose to say one 
word in defense or commendation of Sanford 


AT THE PINES 


309 


and his work, she fully intended so to soften 
the rough edges of the chief engineer and his 
assistants that any adverse ruling would be 
well-nigh impossible. 

If Mrs. Leroy lent a cheerful and willing 
hand, the presiding genius of the weather was 
equally considerate. The morning broke clear 
and bright. The sun silvered the tall grass of 
the wide marsh crossed by the railroad trestle 
and draw, and illumined the great clouds of 
white steam puffed out by the passing trains. 
The air was balmy and soft, the sky a turquoise 
flecked with sprays of pearl, the sea a sheet 
of silver. 

When the maid opened her windows, Mrs. 
Leroy stepped to the balcony and drank in the 
beauty and freshness of the morning. Even 
the weather powers, she said to herself, had 
ceased hostilities, and declared a truce for the 
day, restraining their turbulent winds until the 
council of war which was to decide Sanford’s 
fate was over. 

As her eye roamed over her perfectly ap- 
pointed and well-kept lawns, her attention was 
drawn to a singular-looking figure crossing the 
grass in the direction of the dock where the 
yacht was moored. It was that of a man dressed 
in the jacket and cap of a club commodore. 
He bore himself with the dignity of a lord high 
admiral walking the quarter-deck. Closer in- 
spection revealed the manly form of no less 


310 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

distinguished a personage than Major Thomas 
Slocomb of Pocomoke. 

Subsequent inquiries disclosed these facts : 
Finding in his room the night before a hitherto 
unsuspected closet door standing partly open, 
the major had, in harmless curiosity, entered 
the closet and inspected the contents, and had 
come upon some attractive garments. That 
these clothes had evidently been worn by and 
were then the sole property of his host, Mor- 
gan Leroy, Commodore N. Y. Y. C., a man 
whom he had never seen, only added to the 
charm of the discovery. Instantly a dozen 
thoughts crowded through his head, — each 
more seductive than the other. Evidently this 
open door and this carefully hung jacket and 
cap meant something out of the ordinary ! It 
was the first time the door had been left open ! 
It had been done purposely, of course, that he 
might see its contents ! Everything in this 
wonderful palace of luxury was free, — cigars, 
brandy, even the stamps on the writing-table 
before him, — why not, then, these yachting 
clothes ? To-morrow was the great day for 
the yacht, when the inspection of the engi- 
neers was to take place. His age and position 
naturally made him the absent commodore’s 
rightful successor. Had Leroy been at home, 
he w/)uld, undoubtedly, have worn these clothes 
himself. The duty of his substitute, therefore, 
was too plain to admit of a moment’s hesita- 


AT THE PINES 


311 

tion. He must certainly wear the clothes. 
One thing, however, touched him deeply, — 
the delicacy of his hostess in putting them 
where he could find them, and the exquisite 
tact with which it had all been done. Even 
if all other considerations failed, he could not 
disappoint that queen among women, that 
Cleopatra of modern times. 

As he squeezed his arms into the jacket — 
Leroy was two thirds his size — and caught 
the glint of the gilt buttons in the mirror, his 
last lingering doubt faded. 

This, then, was the figure Mrs. Leroy saw 
from her bedroom window. 

When the major boarded the yacht the sail- 
ing-master saluted him with marked deference, 
remembering the uniform, even if he did not 
the wearer, and the sailors holystoning the 
decks came up to a half present as he passed 
them on his way to the saloon to see if Sam 
had carried out his instructions about certain 
brews necessary for the comfort of the day. 

** Where the devil did you get that rig, ma- 
jor ? ” roared Smearly, when he and Sanford 
came down the companionway, half an hour 
later. “ You look like a cross between Dick 
Deadeye and Little Lord Fauntleroy. It ’s 
about two sizes too small for you.” 

Do you think so, gentlemen .? ” twisting 
his back to the mirrors to get a better view. 
His face was a study. It ’s some time since 


312 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

I wore ’em ; they may be a little tight. I ’ve 
noticed lately that I am gaining flesh. Will 
you sit here, gentlemen, or shall I order some- 
thing coolin’ on deck.?” — not a quaver in his 
voice. “ Here, Sam,” he called, catching sight 
of that darky’s face, “take these gentlemen’s 
orders.” 

When Helen and Mrs. Leroy appeared, fol- 
lowed by several ladies with Hardy as escort, 
the major sprang forward to greet them with 
all the suppressed exuberance of a siphon of 
Vichy. He greeted Helen first. 

“ Ah, my dear Helen, you look positively 
charmin’ this mornin’ ; you are like a tea-rose 
wet with dew ; nothing like these Maryland 
girls, — unless, my dear madam,” he added, 
turning to Mrs. Leroy, bowing as low to his 
hostess as the grip of his shoulders would per- 
mit, “ unless it be yo’r own queenly presence. 
Sam, put some cushions behind the ladies’ backs, 
or shall I order coffee for you on deck ? ” 

But it was not until the major came up on 
the return curve of his bow to a perpendicular 
that his hostess realized in full the effect of 
Morgan Leroy’s nautical outfit. She gave a 
little gasp, and her face flushed. 

“ I hope none of these ladies will recognize 
Morgan’s clothes, Henry,” she whispered be- 
hind her fan to Sanford. “ I must say this is 
going a step too far.” 

“But didn’t you send them to his room, 


AT THE PINES 


3*3 


Kate ? He told me this morning he wore 
them out of deference to your wishes. He 
found them hanging in his closet.” Sanford’s 
face wore a quizzical smile. 

“ I send them } ” Then the whole thing 
burst upon her. With the keenest apprecia- 
tion of the humor of the situation in every line 
of her face, she turned to the major and said, 

I must congratulate you, major, on your new 
outfit, and I must thank you for wearing it 
to-day. It was very good of you to put it on. 
It is an important occasion, you know, for Mr. 
Sanford. Will you give me your arm and take 
me on deck ? ” 

Helen stared in complete astonishment as 
she listened to Mrs. Leroy. This last addi- 
tion to the major’s constantly increasing ward- 
robe — he had a way of borrowing the clothes 
of any friend with whom he stayed — had for 
the moment taken her breath away. It was 
only when Jack whispered an explanation to 
her that she, too, entered into the spirit of the 
scene. 

Before the yacht had passed through the 
draw of the railroad trestle on her way to the 
Ledge, the several guests had settled them- 
selves in the many nooks and corners about 
the deck or on the more luxurious cushions of 
the saloon. Mrs. Leroy, now that her guests 
were happily placed, sat well forward out of 
immediate hearing, where she could talk over 


314 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

the probable outcome of the day with Sanford, 
and lay her plans if Carleton’s opposition 
threatened serious trouble. Helen and Jack 
were'as far aft as they could get, watching the 
gulls dive for scraps thrown from the galley, 
while Smearly in the saloon below was the 
centre of a circle of ladies, — guests from the 
neighboring cottages, — who were laughing at 
his stories, and who had, thus early in the day, 
voted him the most entertaining man they had 
ever met, although a trifle cynical. 

As for the major, he was as restless as a 
newsboy, and everywhere at once : in the gal- 
ley, giving minute directions to the chef re- 
garding the slicing of the cucumbers and the 
proper mixing of the salad ; up in the pilot- 
house interviewing the sailing-master on the 
weather, on the tides, on the points of the 
wind, on the various beacons, shoals, and cur- 
rents ; and finally down in the pantry, where 
Sam, in white apron, immaculate waistcoat and 
tie, was polishing some pipe-stemmed glasses, 
intended receptacles of cooling appetizers com- 
posed of some ingredients of the major’s own 
selection. 

“You lookin’ mighty fine, major, dis morn- 
in’,” said Sam, his mouth stretched in a broad 
grin. “ Dat ’s de tip-nist, top-nist git -up I 
done seen fur a coon’s age,” detecting a certain 
— to him — cake-walk cut to the coat and 
white duck trousers. “Did dat come up on 


AT THE PINES 


315 


de train las’ night, sah ? ” he asked, walking 
round the major, and wiping a glass as he 
looked him over admiringly. 

‘‘Yes, Sam, and it’s the first time I wore 
’em. Little tight in the sleeves, ain’t they ? ” 
the major inquired, holding out his arm. 

“ Does seem ter pinch leetle mite round de 
elbows ; but you do look good, fur a fac’.” 

These little confidences were not unusual. 
Indeed, of all the people about him the major 
understood Sam the best and enjoyed him the 
most, — an understanding, by the way, which 
was mutual. There never was any strain 
upon the Pocomokian’s many resources of high 
spirits, willingness to please, and general util- 
ity, when he was alone with Sam. He never 
had to make an effort to keep his position ; 
that Sam accorded him. But then, Sam be- 
lieved in the major. 

As the yacht rounded the east end of Crotch 
Island, Sanford made out quite plainly over 
the port bow the lighthouse tender steaming 
along from a point in the direction of Little 
Gull Light. 

“ There they come,” he said to Mrs. Leroy. 
“ Everything is in our favor to-day, Kate. I 
was afraid they might be detained. We ’ll 
steam about here for a while until the tender 
lands at the new wharf which we have just 
finished at the Ledge. The yacht draws a 
little too much water to risk the wharf, and 


3i6 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

we had better lie outside of the government 
boat. It ’s as still as a mill-pond at the Ledge 
to-day, and we can all go ashore. If you will 
permit me, Kate, I ’ll call to your sailing- 
master to slow down until the tender reaches 
the wharf.” 

At this moment the major’s head appeared 
around the edge of the pilot-house door. He 
had overheard Sanford’s remark. “ Allow me, 
madam,” he said in a voice of great dignity, 
and with a look at Sanford, as if somehow that 
gentleman had infringed upon his own espe- 
cial privileges. The next instant the young 
engineer’s suggestion to slow down ” was 
sent bounding up to the sailing-master, who 
answered it with a touch of two fingers to his 
cap, an Ay, ay, sir,” and some sharp, quick 
pulls on the engine-room gong. 

Mrs. Leroy smiled at the major’s nautical 
knowledge and quarter-deck air, and rose to 
her feet to see the approaching tender. Under 
Sanford’s guiding finger, she followed the 
course of the long thread of black smoke lying 
on the still horizon, unwinding slowly from the 
spool of the tender’s funnel. 

Everybody was now on deck. Helen and 
the other younger ladies of the party leaned 
over the yacht’s rail watching the rapidly near- 
ing steamer ; the older ladies mounted the deck 
from the cabin, some of them becoming fully 
persuaded that the Ledge with its derricks and 


AT THE PINES 


317 


shanty — a purple-gray mass under the morn- 
ing glare — was unquestionably the expected 
boat. 

Soon the Ledge loomed up in all its propor- 
tions, with its huge rim of circular masonry 
lying on the water line like a low monitor 
rigged with derricks for masts. When the 
rough shanty for the men, and the platforms 
filled with piles of cement barrels, and the 
hoisting-engine were distinctly outlined against 
the sky, everybody crowded forward to see the 
place of which they had heard so much. 

Mrs. Leroy stood one side, that Sanford 
might explain without interruption the several 
objects as they came into view. 

“Why, Henry,” she exclaimed, after every- 
body had said how wonderful it all was, “ how 
much work you have really done since I saw 
it in the spring ! And there is the engine, is 
it, to which the pump belonged that nearly 
drowned Captain Joe and Caleb And are 
those the big derricks you had so much trouble 
over ? They don’t look very big.” 

“ They are twice the size of your body, Kate,” 
said Sanford, laughing. “They may look to 
you like knitting-needles from this distance, 
but that is because everything around them is 
on so large a scale. You wouldn’t think that 
shanty which looks like a coal-bin could accom- 
modate twenty men and their stores.” 

As Sanford ceased speaking, the major 


3i8 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

turned quickly, entered the pilot-house, and 
almost instantly reappeared with the yacht’s 
spyglass. This he carefully adjusted, resting 
the end on the ratlines. “ Victory is ours,” 
he said slowly, closing the glass. I have n’t 
a doubt about the result.” 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE RECORD OF NICKLES, THE COOK 

The yacht and the lighthouse tender were 
not the only boats bound for the Ledge. The 
Screamer, under charge of a tug, — her sails 
would have been useless in the still air, — was 
already clear of Keyport 'Light, and heading 
for the landing-wharf a mile away. Captain 
Bob Brandt held the tiller, and Captain Joe 
and Caleb leaned out of the windows of the 
pilot-house of the towing tug. They wanted 
to be there to see if Carleton ‘Splayed any 
monkey tricks,” to quote Captain Brandt. 

None of them had had cause to entertain a 
friendly spirit toward the superintendent. It 
had often been difficult for Caleb to keep his 
hands from Carleton’s throat since his expe- 
rience with him under the willows. As for 
Captain Brandt, he still remembered the day 
the level was set, when Carleton had virtually 
given him the lie. 

The Screamer arrived first ; she made fast 
to the now completed dock, and the tug 
dropped back in the eddy. Then the light- 
house tender came alongside and hooked a line 


320 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

around the Screamer’s deck-cleats. The yacht 
came last, lying outside the others. This 
made it necessary for the passengers aboard 
the yacht to cross the deck of the tender, and 
for those of both the yacht and the tender to 
cross the deck of the Screamer, before step- 
ping upon the completed masonry of the light- 
house itself. 

Nothing could have suited Mrs. Leroy better 
than this enforced intermingling of guests and 
visitors. The interchanges of courtesy estab- 
lished at once a cordiality which augured well 
for the day’s outcome and added another touch 
of sunshine to its happiness, and so she re- 
laxed none of her efforts to propitiate the gods. 

It is worthy of note that Carleton played no 
part in the joyous programme of the day. He 
sprang ashore as soon as the tender made fast 
to the Screamer’s side (he had met the party 
of engineers at the railroad depot, and had 
gone with them to Little Gull Light, — their 
first stopping-place), and began at once his 
work of “ superintending ” with a vigor and 
alertness never seen in him before, and, to 
quote Nickles, the cook, who was watching the 
whole performance from the shanty window, 
“with more airs than a Noank goat with a 
hoop-skirt.” 

The moment the major’s foot was firmly 
planted upon the Ledge a marked change was 
visible in him. The straight back, head up, 


THE RECORD OF NICKLES, THE COOK 321 

rear-admiral manner, which had distinguished 
him, gave way to one of a thoughtful repose. 
Engineering problems began to absorb him. 
Leaving Hardy and Smearly to help the older 
ladies pick their way over the mortar-incrusted 
platforms and up and down the rude ladders 
to the top rim of masonry, he commenced in- 
specting the work with the eye of a skilled 
mechanic. He examined carefully the mortar 
joints of the masonry ; squinted his eye along 
the edges of the cut stones to see if they were 
true ; turned it aloft, taking in the system of 
derricks, striking one with the palm of his 
hand and listening for the vibration, to assure 
himself of its stability. And he asked ques- 
tions in a way that left no doubt in the minds 
of the men that he was past grand master in 
the art of building lighthouses. 

All but one man. 

This doubter was Lonny Bowles, whom the 
Pocomokian had cared for in the old warehouse 
hospital the night of the explosion. Bowles 
had quietly dogged the major s steps over the 
work, in the hope of being recognized. At 
last the good-natured lineaments of the red- 
shirted quarryman fastened themselves upon 
the major’s remembrance. 

“ My dear suh ! ” he broke out, as he jumped 
down from a huge coping-stone and grasped 
Lonny’s hand. “ Of co’se I remember you. 
I sincerely hope you ’re all right again,” step- 


322 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

ping back and looking him over with an expres- 
sion of real pride and admiration. 

“ Oh yes, I ’m purty hearty, thank ye,” said 
Bowles, laughing as he hitched his sleeves up 
his arms, bared to the elbow. “ How ’s things 
gone ’long o’ yerself ? ” 

The major expressed his perfect satisfaction 
with life an its every detail, and was about to 
compliment Bowles on the wonderful progress 
of the work so largely due to his efforts, when 
the man at the hoisting-engine interrupted with. 
Don’t stand there now lalligaggin’, Lonny. 
Where ye been this half hour ? Hurry up with 
that monkey-wrench. Do you want this drum 
to come off.^” Lonny instantly turned his 
attention to the work. When he had given 
the last turn to the endangered nut, the man 
said, “ Who ’s the duck with the bobtail coat, 
Lonny } ” 

“ Oh, he ’s one o’ the boss’s city gang. 
Fust time I see him he come inter th’ ware- 
house when we was stove up. I thought he 
was a sawbones till I see him a-fetchin’ water 
fur th’ boys. Then I thought he was a preach 
till he began to swear. But he ain’t neither 
one ; he ’s an out-an’-out ol’ sport, he is, every 
time, an’ a good un. He ’s struck it rich up 
here, I guess, from th’ way he ’s boomin’ things 
with them Leroy folks,” — which conviction 
seemed to be shared by the men around him, 
now that they were assured of the major’s 


THE RECORD OF NICKLES, THE COOK 323 

identity. Many of them remembered the 
nankeen and bombazine suit which the Poco- 
mokian wore on that fatal day, and the gener- 
ally disheveled appearance that he presented 
the following morning. The present change 
in his attire was therefore the more incompre- 
hensible. 

During all this time, Sanford, with the assist- 
ance of Captain Joe and Caleb, was adjusting 
his transit, in order that he might measure for 
the committee the exact difference between 
the level shown on the plans and the level 
found in the concrete base. In this adjust- 
ment, the major, who had now joined the group, 
took the deepest interest, discoursing most 
learnedly, to the officers about him, upon the 
marvels of modern science, punctuating his 
remarks every few minutes with pointed allu- 
sions to his dear friend Henry, “that Archi- 
medes of the New World,” who in this the 
greatest of all his undertakings had eclipsed 
all former achievements. The general listened 
with an amused smile, in which the whole 
committee joined before long. 

Either General Barton’s practiced eye fore- 
stalled any need of the instrument, or Carle- 
ton had already fully posted him as to which 
side of the circle was some inches too high, for 
he asked, with some severity : — 

“ Is n’t the top of that corfcrete base out of 
level, Mr. Sanford 


324 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“Yes, sir; some inches too high near the 
southeast derrick,” replied Sanford promptly. 

“ How did that occur ? ” 

“ I should prefer you to ask the superintend- 
ent,” said Sanford quietly. 

Mrs. Leroy, who was standing a short dis- 
tance away on a dry plank that Sanford had 
put under her feet, her ears alert, stopped 
talking to Smearly and turned her head. She 
did not want to miss a word. 

“ What have you to say, Mr. Carleton ? 
Did you give any orders to raise that level ? ” 
The general looked over his glasses at the su- 
perintendent. 

Carleton had evidently prepared himself for 
this ordeal, and had carefully studied his line 
of answers. As long as he kept the written 
requirements under the contract he was safe. 

“ If I understand my instructions, sir, I am 
not here to give orders. The plans show what 
is to be done.” He spoke in a low, almost 
gentle voice, and with a certain deference of 
manner which no one had ever seen in him 
before, and which Sanford felt was even more 
to be dreaded than his customary bluster. 

Captain Joe stepped closer to Sanford’s side, 
and Caleb and Captain Bob Brandt, who stood 
on the outside of the circle of officers grouped 
around the tripod, leaned forward, listening in- 
tently. They, too, had noticed the change in 
Carleton’s manner. The other men dropped 


THE RECORD OF NICKLES, THE COOK 325 

their shovels and tools, and edged up, not ob- 
trusively, but so as to overhear everything. 

“ Is this the reason you have withheld the 
certificate, of which the contractor complains ? ” 
asked the general, with a tone in his voice as 
of a judge interrogating a witness. 

Carleton bowed his head meekly in assent. 

I can’t sign for work that ’s done wrong, sir.” 

Captain Joe made a movement as if to speak, 
when Sanford, checking him with a look, 
began, “The superintendent is right so far as 
he goes, general, but there is another clause 
in the contract which he seems to forget. I ’ll 
quote it,” drawing an important-looking docu- 
ment from his pocket and spreading it out on 
the top of a cement barrel: “‘Any dispute 
arising between the United States engineer, 
or his superintendent, and the contractor, shall 
be decided by the former, and his decision 
shall be final.’ If the level of this concrete 
base does not conform to the plans, there is no 
one to blame but the superintendent himself.” 

Sanford’s flashing eye and rising voice had 
attracted the attention of the ladies as well as 
that of their escorts. They ceased talking and 
played with the points of their parasols, tracing 
little diagrams in the cement dust, preserving 
a strict neutrality, like most people overhear- 
ing a quarrel in which they have no interest, 
but who are alert to lose no move in the con- 
test. Sanford would have liked less publicity 


326 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

in the settlement of the matter, and so ex- 
pressed himself in a quick glance toward the 
guests. This anxiety was instantly seen by 
the major, who, with a tact that Sanford had 
not given him credit for, led the ladies away 
out of hearing on pretense of showing them 
some of the heavy masonry. 

The engineer-in-chief looked curiously at 
Carleton, and the awakened light of a new im- 
pression gleamed in his eye. Sanford’s con- 
fident manner and Carleton’s momentary agi- 
tation over Sanford’s statement, upsetting for 
an instant his lamblike reserve, evidently indi- 
cated something hidden behind this dispute 
which until then had not come to the front. 

“ I ’ll take any blame that ’s coming to me,” 
said Carleton, his meekness merging into a 
dogged, half-imposed-on tone, “but I can’t be 
responsible for other folks’ mistakes. I set 
that level myself two months ago, and left the 
bench-marks for ’em to work up to. When 
I come out next time they ’d altered them. I 
told ’em it would n’t do, and they ’d have to 
take up what concrete they ’d set and lower 
the level again. They said they was behind 
and wanted to catch up, that it made no differ- 
ence anyhow, and they wouldn’t do it.” 

General Barton turned to Sanford and was 
about to speak, when a voice rang out clear 
and sharp, “ That ’s a lie ! ” 

Everybody looked about for the speaker. If 


THE RECORD OF NICKLES, THE COOK 327 

a bomb had exploded above their heads, the 
astonishment could not have been greater. 

Before any one could speak Captain Bob 
Brandt forced his way into the middle of the 
group. His face was flushed with anger, his 
lower lip was quivering. “ I say it again. 
That ’s a lie, and you know it,” he said calmly, 
pointing his finger at Carleton, whose cheek 
paled at this sudden onslaught. “ This ain’t 
my job, gentlemen,” and he faced General 
Barton and the committee, “ an’ it don’t make 
no difference to me whether it gits done ’r not. 
I ’m hired here ’long with my sloop a-layin’ 
there at the wharf, an’ I git my pay. But 
I ’ve been here all summer, an’ I stood by when 
this ’ere galoot you call a superintendent sot 
this level ; and when he says Cap’n Joe did n’t 
do the work as he ordered it he lies like a 
thief, an’ I don’t care who hears it. Ask Cap’n 
Joe Bell and Caleb West, a-standin’ right there 
’longside o’ ye : they ’ll gin it to ye straight ; 
they ’re that kind.” 

Barton was an old man and accustomed to 
the respectful deference of a government office, 
but he was also a keen observer of human na- 
ture. The expression on the skipper’s face 
and on the faces of the others about him was 
too fearless to admit of a moment’s doubt of 
their sincerity. 

Carleton shrugged his shoulders as if it 
were to be expected that Sanford’s men would 


328 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

stand by him. Then he said, with a half sneer 
at Captain Brandt, Five dollars goes a long 
ways with you fellers.” The cat had uncon- 
sciously uncovered its claws. 

Brandt sprang forward with a wicked look in 
his eye, when the general raised his hand. 

“ Come, men, stop this right away.” There 
was a tone in the chief engineer’s voice which 
impelled obedience. “We are here to find 
out who is responsible for this error. I am 
surprised, Mr. Sanford,” turning almost fiercely 
upon him, “that a man of your experience did 
not insist on a written order for this change 
of plan. While six inches over an area of this ' 
size does not materially injure the work, you 
are too old a contractor to alter a level to one 
which you admit now was wrong, and which 
at the time you knew was wrong, without some 
written order. It violates the contract.” 

Here Nickles, the cook, who had been cran- 
ing his neck out of the shanty window so as 
not to lose a word of the talk, withdrew it so 
suddenly that one of the men standing by the 
door hurried into the shanty, thinking some- 
thing unusual was the matter. 

“I have never been able to get a written 
order from this superintendent for any detail 
of the work since he has been here,” said San- 
ford in a positive tone, “and he has never 
raised his hand to help us. What the cause of 
his enmity is I do not know. We have all of 


THE RECORD OF NICKLES, THE COOK 329 

us tried to treat him courteously and follow 
his orders whenever it was possible to do so. 
He insisted on this change after both my mas- 
ter diver, Caleb West here, Captain Joe Bell, 
and others of my best men had protested against 
it, and we had either to stop work and appeal 
to the Board, and so lose the summer’s work 
and be liable to the government for non-com- 
pletion on time, or obey him. I took the lat- 
ter course, and you can see the result. It was 
my only way out of the difficulty.” 

At this instant there came a crash which 
sounded like breaking china, evidently in the 
shanty, and a cloud of white dust, the contents 
of a partly empty flour-barrel, sifted out through 
the open window. The general turned his 
head in inquiry, and, seeing nothing unusual, 
continued : — ■ 

“ You should have stopped work, sir, and 
appealed. The government does not want its 
work done in a careless, unworkmanlike way, 
and will not pay for it.” His voice had a tone 
in it that sent a pang of anxiety to Mrs. Leroy’s 
heart. 

Carleton smiled grimly. He was all right, 
he said to himself. Nobody believed the 
Yankee skipper. 

Before Sanford could gather his wits in reply 
the shanty door was flung wide open, and 
Nickles backed out, carrying in his arms a pine 
door, higher and wider than himself. He had 


330 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

lifted it from its hinges in the pantry, upsetting 
everything about it. 

“ I guess mebbe I ain’t been a-watchin’ this 
all summer fur nothin’, gents,” he said, planting 
the door squarely before the general. ‘‘You 
kin read it fur yerself, — it ’s ’s plain ’s print. 

If ye want what ye call an ‘order,’ here it is 
large as life.” 

It was the once clean pine door of the 
shanty, on which Sanford and the men had 
placed their signatures in blue pencil the day 
the level was fixed, and Carleton, defying San- 
ford, had said it should “ go that way ” or he ^ 
would stop the work ! 

General Barton adjusted his eyeglasses and 
began reading the inscription. A verbatim 
record of Carleton’s instructions was before 
him. The other members of the Board crowded 
around, reading it in silence. 

General Barton replaced his gold-rimmed 
eyeglasses carefully in their case, and for a 
moment looked seaward in an abstracted sort 
of way. The curiously inscribed door had evi- 
dently made a deep impression upon him. 

“ I had forgotten about that record, general,” 
said Sanford, “ but I am very glad it has been 
preserved. It was made at the time, so we 
could , exactly carry out the superintendent’s 
instructions. As to its truth, I should prefer 
you to ask the men who signed it. They are 
all here around you.” 


THE RECORD OF NICKLES, THE COOK 331 

The general looked again at Captain Joe and 
Caleb. There was no questioning their integ- 
rity. Theirs were faces that disarmed suspi- 
cion at once. 

Are these your signatures .? ” he asked, 
pointing to the scrawls in blue lead pencil sub- 
scribed under Sanford’s. 

‘‘They are, sir,” said Captain Joe and Caleb 
almost simultaneously ; Caleb answering with 
a certain tone of solemnity, as if he were still 
in government service and under oath, lifting 
his hat as he spoke. Men long in government 
employ have this sort of unconscious awe in 
the presence of their superiors. 

“ Make a copy of it,” said the general curtly 
to the secretary of the Board. Then he turned 
on his heel, crossed the Screamer’s deck, and 
entered the cabin of the tender, where he was 
followed by the other members of the com- 
mittee. 

Ten minutes later the steward of the tender 
called Carleton. The men looked after him as 
he picked his way over the platforms and across 
the deck of the sloop. His face was flushed, 
and a nervous twitching of the muscles of his 
mouth showed his agitation over the summons. 
The apparition of the pantry door, they thought, 
had taken the starch out of him. 

Mrs. Leroy crossed to Sanford’s side and 
whispered anxiously, “What do you think, 
Henry .? ” 


332 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ I don’t know yet, Kate. Barton is a gruff, 
exact man, and a martinet, but he has n’t a dis- 
honest hair on his head. Wait.” 

The departure of the engineers aboard the 
tender, followed almost immediately by that of 
the superintendent, left the opposition, so to 
speak, unrepresented. Those of the ladies 
who were on sufficiently • intimate terms with 
Sanford to mention the fact at all, and who, 
despite the major’s efforts to lead them out of 
range, had heard every word of the discussion, 
expressed the hope that the affair would come 
out all right. One, a Mrs. Corson, said in a 
half -querulous tone that she thought they 
ought to be ashamed of themselves to find any 
fault, after all the hard work he had done. 
Jack and Smearly consulted apart. They were 
somewhat disturbed, but still believed that 
Sanford would win his case. 

To the major, however, the incident had a 
far deeper and much more significant meaning. 

It ’s a part of their infernal system, Henry,” 
he said in a sympathetic voice, now really con- 
cerned for his friend’s welfare, — ‘‘a trick of 
the damnable oligarchy, suh, that is crushing 
out the life of the people. It is the first time 
since the wah that I have come as close as 
this to any of the representatives of this gov- 
ernment, and it will be the last, suh.” 

Before Sanford could soothe the warlike 
spirit of his champion, the steward of the ten- 


THE RECORD OF NICKLES, THE COOK 333 

der again appeared, and, touching his cap, said 
the committee wished to see Mr. Sanford. 

The young engineer excused himself to 
those about him and followed the steward, 
Mrs. Leroy looking after him with a glance of 
anxiety as he crossed the deck of the Screamer, 
an anxiety which Sanford- tried to relieve 
by an encouraging wave of his hand. 

As Sanford entered the saloon Carleton was 
just leaving it, hat in hand. He did not raise 
his eyes. His face was blue-white. Little 
flecks of saliva were sticking in the corners of 
his mouth, as if his breath were dry. 

General Barton sat at the head of the saloon 
table. The other members of the Board were 
seated below him. 

‘‘Mr. Sanford,” said the general, “we have 
investigated the differences between yourself 
and the superintendent with the following re- 
sult : First, the committee has accepted the 
work as it stands, believing in the truthfulness 
of yourself and your men, confirmed by a re- 
cord which it could not doubt. Second, the 
withheld certificate will be signed and checks 
forwarded to you as soon as the necessary pa- 
pers can be prepared. Third, Superintendent 
Carleton has been relieved from duty at Shark 
Ledge Light.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


AFTER THE BATTLE 

Carleton’s downfall was known all over 
the Ledge and on board every boat that lay at 
its wharf long before either he or Sanford re- 
gained the open air. The means of communi- 
cation was that same old silent current that ^ 
requires neither pole nor battery to put it into 
working order. Within thirty seconds of the 
time the ominous words fell from the general’s 
lips, the single word “ Dennis,” the universal 
sobriquet for a discharged man our working 
world over, was in every man’s mouth. What- 
ever medium was used, the meaning was none 
the less clear and unmistakable. The steward 
may have winked to the captain in the pilot- 
house, or the cook shrugged his shoulders, open- 
ing his mouth with the gasping motion of a 
strangling chicken, and so conveyed the news 
to the forecastle ; or one of the crew, with ears 
wide open, might have found it necessary to 
uncoil a rope outside the cabin window at the 
precise moment the general gave his decision, 
and have instantly passed the news along to his 
nearest mate. Of one thing there was no 


AFTER THE BATTLE 


335 


doubt : Carleton had given his last order on 
Shark Ledge. 

An animated discussion followed among the 
men. 

“Ought to give him six months,” blurted 
out Captain Bob Brandt, whose limited expe- 
rience of government inspecting boards led him 
to believe that its officers were clothed with 
certain judicial powers. “Hadn’t ’a’ been for 
old Hamfats” (Nickles’s nickname) “an’ his 
pantry door, he’d ’a’ swore Cap’n Joe’s char- 
acter away.” 

“ Well, I ’m kind’er sorry for him, anyway,” 
said Captain Joe, not noticing the skipper’s 
humorous allusion. “ Poor critter, he ain’t real 
responsible. What ’s he goin’ to do fur a livin’, 
now that the gov’ment ain’t a-goin’ to support 
him no more ? ” 

“Ain’t nobody cares; he’ll know better ’n 
to lie nex’ time,” grunted Lonny Bowles. “Is 
he cornin’ ashore here agin, Caleb, er has he 
dug a hole fur himself ’board the tender in the 
coal bunkers ” 

Caleb smiled grimly, but made no reply. He 
never liked to think of Carleton, much less to 
talk of him. Since the night when he had way- 
laid Betty coming home from Keyport, his name 
had not passed the diver’s lips. He had always 
avoided him on the work, keeping out of his 
way, not so much from fear of Carleton as from 
fear of himself, — fear that in some uncontrol- 


336 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

lable moment he might fall upon him and 
throttle him. 

If a certain sigh of relief went up from the 
working force on the Ledge over Carleton’s 
downfall and Sanford’s triumph, a much more 
joyous feeling permeated the yacht. Not only 
were Jack and Smearly jubilant, but even Sam, 
with a grin the width of his face, had a little 
double shuffle of his own in the close quarters 
of the galley, while the major began forthwith 
to concoct a brew in which to drink Sanford’s 
health, and of such mighty power that for once 
Sam disobeyed his instructions, and emptied 
a pint of Medford spring water instead of an 
equal amount of old Holland gin into the se- 
ductive mixture. ’Fo’ God, Mr. Sanford, dey 
would n’t one o’ dem ladies knowed deir head 
from a whirlum-gig if dey ’d drank dat punch,” 
he said afterwards to his master, in palliation 
of his sin. 

Sanford took the situation with a calmness 
customary to him when things were going well. 
His principle in life was to do his best every 
time, and leave the rest to fate. When he 
worried it was before a crisis. He had not 
belittled the consequences of a rejection of the 
work. He knew how serious it might have 
been. Had the Board become thoroughly con- 
vinced that he had openly and without just 
cause violated both the written contract and 
the instructions of the superintendent, they 


AFTER THE BATTLE 


337 


might have been forced to make an example of 
him, and to require all the upper masonry to be 
torn down and rebuilt on a true level, a result 
which would have entailed the loss of thousands 
of dollars. 

His own reply to General Barton and the 
Board was a grim, reserved, “ I thank you, gen- 
tlemen,” with an added hope that the new su- 
perintendent might be instructed to give written 
orders when any departure from the contract 
was insisted upon, to which the chief engineer 
agreed. 

His greatest satisfaction, though, was really 
over his men. The vindication of his course 
was as much their triumph as his. He knew 
who had been its master spirits ; the credit was 
not due to him, but to Captain Joe, Caleb, 
and Captain Brandt, whose pluck, skill, and de- 
votion both to himself and the work had made 
its success possible. He had only inspired 
them to do their best. 

Later, when he called them together on the 
Ledge and gave them the details of the inter- 
view, — he never kept anything of this kind from 
his working force, — he cautioned one and all 
of them to exercise the greatest patience and 
good temper toward the new superintendent, 
whoever he might be, who was promised in a 
few days, so that nothing might happen which 
would incur his ill will ; reminding them that 
it would not do for a second superintendent to 


338 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

be disgruntled, no matter whose fault it was, to 
which Captain Joe sententiously replied : — 

“-All right ; let ’em send who they like ; 
sooner the better. But one thing I kin tell 
’em, an’ that is that none on ’em can’t stop us 
now from gittin’ through, no matter how ornery 
they be.” 

But of all the happy souls that breathed the 
air of this lovely autumn day Mrs. Leroy was 
the happiest. She felt, somehow, that the de- 
cision of the committee was a triumph for both 
Sanford and herself : for Sanford because of 
his constant fight against the elements, for her 
because of her advice and encouragement. As 
the words fell from Sanford’s lips, telling her 
of the joyful news, — he had found her aboard 
the yacht and had told her first of all, — her 
face flushed, and her eyes lighted with gen- 
uine pleasure. 

What did I tell you ! ” she said, holding 
out her hand in a hearty, generous way, as a 
man would have done. “ I knew you would do 
it. Oh, I am so proud of you, you great splen- 
did fellow ! ” 

Then a sudden inspiration seized her. She 
darted back again to the Ledge in search of Cap- 
tain Joe, her dainty skirts raised about her tiny 
boots to keep them from the rough platforms. 

“ Do come and lunch with us. Captain Bell ! ” 
she exclaimed in her joyous way. “ I really want 
you, and the ladies would so love to talk to 


AFTER THE BATTLE 


339 


you.” She had not forgotten his tenderness 
over Betty the morning he came for her ; more 
than that, he had stood by Sanford. 

The captain stopped, somewhat surprised, 
and looked down into her eyes with the kindly 
expression of a big mastiff diagnosing a kitten. 

“ Well, that ’s real nice o’ ye, an’ I thank ye 
kindly,” he answered, his eyes lighting up at 
her evident sincerity. “ But ye see yer vittles 
would do me no good. So if ye won’t take no 
offense I ’ll kind’er grub in with the other men. 
Cook’s jes’ give notice to all hands.” 

As she looked into his eyes her thoughts re- 
verted to that morning in the hospital when the 
captain’s same sense of the fitness of things 
had saved her from being established as nurse 
to the wounded men. She was about to press 
her request again when her glance fell on Caleb 
standing by himself a little way off. She 
turned and walked toward him. But it was not 
to ask him to luncheon. 

“ I have heard Mr. Sanford speak so often 
of you that I wanted to know you before I left 
the work,” she said, holding out her little gloved 
hand. Caleb looked into her face and touched 
the dainty glove with two of his fingers, — he was 
afraid to do more, it was so small, — and, with 
his eyes on hers, listened while she spoke in a 
tender, sympathetic tone, lowering her voice so 
that no one could hear but himself, — not even 
Sanford : I have heard all about your troubles. 


340 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


Mr. West, and I am so sorry for you both ; she 
stayed with me one night last summer. She 
said, poor child, she was very miserable ; it ’s 
an awful thing to be alone in the world.” 

Sanford watched her as she flitted over the 
rough platforms like a bird that sings as it flies. 
Unaccountable as it was to him even in the 
happiness of his triumph, a strange feeling of 
disappointment came over him. He began in 
an utterly unreasonable way to wonder whether 
their intimacy would now be as close as be- 
fore, and whether the daily conferences would 
end, since he had no longer any anxieties to lay 
before her. 

Something in her delight, and especially in 
the frank way in which she had held out her 
hand like a man friend in congratulation, had 
chilled rather than cheered him. He felt hurt 
without knowing why. A sense of indeflnable 
personal loss came over him. In the rush of 
contending emotions suddenly assailing him, he 
began to doubt whether she had understood his 
motives that night on the veranda when he had 
kissed her hand, — whether in fact he had ever 
understood her. Had she really conquered her 
feelings as he had his ? Or had there been 
nothing to conquer .? Then another feeling rose 
in his heart, — a vague jealousy of the very 
work which had bound them so closely to- 
gether, and which now seemed to claim all her 
interest. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


A BROKEN DRAW 

Throughout the luncheon that followed 
aboard the yacht the major was the life of the 
party. He had offered no apology either to 
Sanford or to any member of the committee 
for his hasty conclusions regarding the “ damn- 
able oligarchy.” He considered that he had 
wiped away all bitterness, when, rising to his 
feet and rapping with the handle of his knife 
for order, he said with great dignity and suavity 
of manner : — 

“On behalf of this queen among women,” 
turning to Mrs. Leroy, “ our lovely hostess, as 
well as these fair young buds” — a graceful 
wave of his hand — (some of these buds had 
grandchildren) “ who adorn her table, I rise to 
thank you, suh,”. — semi-military salute to Gen- 
eral Barton, — “for the opportunity you have 
given them of doing honor to a gentleman and 
a soldier,” — a double-barreled compliment that 
brought a smile to that gentleman’s face, and 
a suppressed ripple of laughter from the other 
members of the committee. 

In the same generous way he filled his own 


342 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

and everybody else’s bumper for Sanford out 
of the bowl that Sam had rendered innocuous, 
addressing his friend as that “ young giant, who 
has lighted up the pathway of the vasty deep.” 
To which bit of grandiloquence Sanford replied 
that the major was premature, but that he 
hoped to accomplish it the following year. 

In addition to conducting all these functions, 
the Pocomokian neglected no minor detail of 
the feast. He insisted upon making the coffee 
after an especial formula of his own, and cooled 
in a new way and with his own hands the sev- 
eral cordials banked up, on Sam’s silver tray. > 
He opened parasols for the ladies and cham- 
pagne for the men with equal grace and dex- 
terity ; was host, waiter, valet, and host again ; 
and throughout the livelong day one unfailing 
source of enthusiasm, courtesy, and helpful- 
ness. With all this be it said to his credit, 
he had never overstepped the limits of his posi- 
tion, as High Rubber-in-Chief, — his main pur- 
pose having been to get all the fun possible 
out of the situation, both for himself and for 
those about him. These praiseworthy efforts 
were not appreciated by all of the guests. The 
general and the committee had several times, 
in their own minds, put him down for a char- 
latan and a mountebank, especially when they 
deliberated upon the fit of his clothes, and his 
bombastic and sometimes fulsome speeches. 

All these several vagaries, however, of the 


A BROKEN DRAW 


343 


distinguished Pocomokian only endeared him 
the more to Sanford and his many friends. 
They saw a little deeper under the veneer, and 
knew that if the major did smoke his hostess’s- 
cigars and drink her cognac, it was always as her 
guest and in her presence. They knew, too, 
that, poor and often thirsty as he was, he would 
as soon have thought of stuffing his carpet-bag 
with the sheets that covered his temporary bed 
as of filling his private flask with the contents 
of the decanter that Buckles brought nightly 
to his room. It was just this delicate sense of 
honor that saved him from pure vagabondage. 

When coffee and cigars had been served, the 
general and his party again crossed the gang- 
plank to the tender, the mooring-lines were 
thrown off, and the two boats, with many wav- 
ings of hands from yacht and Ledge, kept on 
their respective courses. The tender was to 
keep on to Keyport, where the committee were 
to board the train for New York, and the yacht 
was to idle along until sundown, and so on into 
Medford harbor. Captain Joe and Caleb were 
to follow later in the tug that had towed out 
the Screamer, they being needed in Keyport to 
load some supplies. 

As the tender steamed away the men on the 
Ledge looked eagerly for Carleton, that they 
might give him some little leave-taking of their 
own, — it would have been a characteristic one, 

' — but he was nowhere to be seen. 


344 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“ Buried up in the coal bunkers, jes’ ’s I said,” 
laughed Lonny Bowles. 

With the final wave to the fast disappearing 
tender of a red handkerchief, the property of 
the major, returned by the general standing in 
the stern of his own boat, Mrs. Leroy’ 5 party 
settled themselves on the forward deck of 
the yacht to enjoy the afternoon run back to 
Medford. 

The ladies sat under the awnings, where they 
were made comfortable with cushions from the 
saloon below, while some of the men threw 
themselves flat on the deck cushions, or sat 
Turkish fashion in those several sprawling posi- 
tions only possible under like conditions, and 
most difficult for some men to learn to assume 
properly. Jack Hardy knew to a nicety how to 
stow his legs away, and so did Sanford. Theirs 
were always invisible. Smearly never tried the 
difficult art. He thought it beneath his dig- 
nity ; and then again there was too much of 
him in the wrong place. The major wanted to 
try it, and no doubt would have done so with 
decorum and grace but for his clothes. It was 
a straight and narrow way that the major had 
been walking all day, and he could run no risks. 

Everything aboard the yacht had been going 
as merry as a marriage or any other happy bell 
of good cheer, — the major at his best, Smearly 
equally delightful, Helen and Jack happy as 


A BROKEN DRAW 


345 


two song-birds, and Mrs. Leroy with a joyous 
word for every one between her confidences 
to Sanford, when just as the gayety was at its 
height a quick sharp ring was heard in the en- 
gine-room below. Almost at the same instant 
one of the crew touched Sanford on the shoul- 
der and whispered something in his ear. 

Sanford sprang to his feet and looked eagerly 
toward the shore. 

The yacht at the moment was entering the 
narrow channel of Medford harbor, and the 
railroad trestle and draw could be plainly seen 
from its deck. Sanford’s quick eye had in- 
stantly detected a break in the sky-line. The 
end of the railroad track placed on the trestle, 
and crossing within a few hundred feet of Mrs. 
Leroy’s cottage, was evidently twisted out of 
shape, while across the channel, on its pposite 
end rested an engine and two cars, the outer 
one derailed and toppled over. On the water 
below were crowded small boats of every con- 
ceivable kind, hurrying to the scene, while the 
surrounding banks were black with people 
watching intently a group of men on board a 
scow, who were apparently trying to keep above 
water a large object which looked like a float- 
ing house. 

Something serious had evidently happened. 

A panic of apprehension instantly seized the 
guests on the yacht. Faces which but a few 
moments before had been rosy with smiles be- 


346 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

came suddenly anxious and frightened. Some 
of the ladies spoke in whispers ; could it be 
possible, every one asked, that the train with 
General Barton and the committee on board 
had met with an accident ? 

Sanford, followed by Mrs. Leroy, hurried into 
the pilot-house to search the horizon from that 
elevation and see the better. One moment’s 
survey removed all doubt from his mind. A 
train had gone through the J.raw ; whether pas- 
senger or freight he could not tell. One thing 
was certain : some lives must be in danger, or 
the crowd would not watch so intently the 
group who were working with such energy 
aboard the rescuing scow. At Sanford’s re- 
quest three, quick, short bells sounded in the 
engine-room below, and the yacht quivered 
along her entire length as she doubled her 
speed. When she came within hailing distance 
of the shore a lobster fisherman pulled out and 
crossed the yacht’s bow. 

“ What ’s happened ? ” shouted Sanford, wav- 
ing his hat to attract attention. 

The fisherman stopped rowing, and the yacht 
slowed down. 

“Train through the draw,” came the answer. 

“ Passenger or freight } ” 

“ ’T ain’t neither one. It ’s a repair train 
from Stonin’ton, with a lot o’ dagos an’ men. 
Caboose went clean under, an’ two cars piled 
on top.” 


A BROKEN DRAW 347 

Sanford breathed freer ; the Board were safe, 
anyhow. 

“ Anybody killed ” 

“Yes. Some says six; some says more. 
None in the caboose got out. The dagos was 
on the dirt-car an’ jumped.” 

The yacht sped on. As she neared the rail- 
road draw Jack took Helen’s hand and led her 
down into the cabin. He did not want her to 
see any sight that would shock her. Mrs. Leroy 
stood by Sanford ; the yacht was her house, so 
to speak ; some one might need its hospitality 
and shelter, and she wanted to be the first to 
offer it. The same idea had crossed Sanford’s 
mind. 

“Major,” said Sanford, “please tell Sam to 
get some brandy ready and bring some of the 
mattresses from the crew’s bunks up on deck ; 
they may be useful.” 

A voice now hailed Sanford. It came from 
the end of the scow nearest the sunken house, 
now seen to be one end of a caboose car. “ Is 
there a doctor aboard your yacht ? ” 

“ Yes, half a one. Who wants him } ” called 
Smear ly, leaning over the rail in the direction 
of the sound. 

“ We ’ve got a man here we can’t bring to. 
He ’s alive, but that ’s all.” 

The yacht backed water and moved close to 
the scow. Sanford jumped down, followed by 
Smearly carrying the brandy and the major 


348 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

with a mattress, and ran along her deck to 
where the man lay. The yacht kept on. It 
was to land the ladies a hundred yards away, 
and then return. 

“Hand me that brandy, quick, major! ” ex- 
claimed Smearly, as he dropped on one knee 
and bent over the sufferer, parting the lips with 
his fingers and pouring a spoonful between the 
closed teeth. “ Now pull that mattress closer, 
and some of you fellows make a pillow of your 
coats, and find something to throw over him 
when he comes to ; it ’s the cold that ’s killing 
him. He’ll pull through, I think.” 

Smearly’ s early training in the hospital ser- 
vice while making sketches during the war had 
more than once stood him in good stead. 

The major was the first man in his shirt- 
sleeves ; Leroy’s commodore coat was begin- 
ning to be of some real service. Two of the 
scow’s crew added their own coats, and then 
ran for an army blanket in the cabin of the 
scow. The sufferer was lifted up on the mat- 
tress and made more comfortable, the coats 
placed under his head, the army blanket tucked 
about him. 

The injured man gave a convulsive gasp and 
partly opened his eyes. The brandy was doing 
its work. Sanford leaned over him to see if he 
could recognize him, but the ooze and slime 
clung so thickly to the mustache and closely 
trimmed beard that he could not make out his 


A BROKEN DRAW 


349 


features. He seemed to be under thirty years 
of age, strong and well built. He was dressed 
in a blue shirt and overalls, and looked like a 
mechanic. 

“ How many others } ” asked Sanford, look- 
ing toward the wreck. 

He ’s the only one alive,” answered the cap- 
tain of the scow. We hauled him through the 
winder of the caboose just as she was a-turnin’ 
over ; he ’s broke something, some’ers, I guess, 
or he ’d ’a’ come to quicker. There ’s two dead 
men under there,” pointing to the sunken ca- 
boose, ‘‘so the brakeman says. If we had a 
diver we could git ’em up. The railroad super- 
intendent ’s been here, an’ says he ’ll send for 
one ; but you know what that means, — he ’ll 
send for a diver after they git this caboose up ; 
by that time they ’d be smashed into pulp.” 

The yacht had now steamed back to the 
wreck with word from Mrs. Ler^y to send for 
whatever would be needed to make the injured 
man comfortable. Sam delivered the message, 
standing in the bow of the yacht. He had not 
liked the idea of leaving Sanford, when the 
yacht moved off from the scow, and had so 
expressed himself to the sailing-master. He 
was Sanford’s servant, not Mrs. Leroy’s, he 
had said, and when people were getting blown 
up and his master had to stay and attend to 
them, his place was beside him, not “waitin’ 
on de ladies.” 


\ 


V 


350 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

"With the approach of the yacht Sanford 
looked at his watch thoughtfully, and raising 
his voice to the sailing-master, who was stand- 
ing in the pilot-house, his hand on the wheel, 
said : Captain, I want you to tow this scow 
to Mrs. Leroy’s dock, so a doctor can get at 
this wounded man. He needs hot blankets at 
once. Then crowd on everything you’ve got 
and run to Keyport. Find Captain Joe Bell, 
and tell him to put my big air-pump aboard 
and bring Caleb West and his diving-dress. 
There are two dead men down here who must 
be got at before the wrecking train begins 
on the caboose. My colored boy, Sam, will go 
with you and help you find the captain’s house, 
— he knows where he lives. If you are quick 
you can make Keyport and back in an hour.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


THE SWINGING GATE 

When the tug landed Caleb at Keyport this 
same afternoon, he hurried through his duties 
and went straight to his cabin. Mrs. Leroy’s 
sympathetic words were still in his ears. He 
could hear the very tones of her voice and re- 
call the pleading look in her eyes. He wished 
he had told her the whole truth then and there, 
and how he felt toward Betty ; and he might 
have done so had not the other ladies been 
there, expecting her aboard the yacht. He did 
not feel hurt or angry ; he never was with 
those who spoke well of his wife. Her words 
had only deepened the conviction that had lately 
taken possession of his own mind, — that he 
alone^ of all who knew Betty, had shut his heart 
against her. Even this woman, — a total stran- 
ger, — who had taken her out of the streets 
and befriended her still pleaded for her. When 
would his own heart ever be softened ? What 
did he want her to do for him ? Crawl back 
on her hands and knees and lie outside his door 
until he took her in ? And if she never came, 
— what then ? 


352 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

How long would she be able to endure her 
present life ? He had saved her from Carleton. 
So far no one except Betty, Carleton, and him- 
self had known of the night attack ; not even 
Captain Joe. It was best not to talk about it ; 
it might injure her. But who else would try to 
waylay and insult her ? Maybe his holding out 
so long against her would force her into other 
temptations, and so ruin her. What if it was 
already too late ? Lacey had been seen round 
Keyport lately, — once at night. He knew he 
wrote to her ; Bert Simmons, the letter-carrier, 
had shown him other letters with the Ston- 
ington postmark. Was Lacey hanging round 
Keyport because she had sent for him ? And 
if she went back to him after all, — whose fault 
was it ? 

At the thought of Lacey the beads of sweat 
stood on his forehead. Various conflicting 
emotions took possession of him, bringing the 
hot blood to his cheek and setting his finger- 
nails deep into the palms of his hands. It was 
only at rare intervals, when he had run into 
Stonington aboard the Screamer, or on one of 
the tugs short of coal or water, that he had 
seen the man who had ruined his home, and 
then only at a distance. The young rigger was 
at work around the cars on the dock. Caleb 
had never known whether Lacey had seen him. 
He thought not. The men said the young fel- 
low always moved away when any of the Key- 


THE SWINGING GATE 


353 


port boats came in. Then his mind reverted 
to Captain Joe and to the night he pleaded for 
her, and to the way he said over and over again, 
“ She ain’t nothin’ but a child, Caleb, an’ all of 
us is liable to go astray.” These words seemed 
to burn themselves into his brain. 

As the twilight came on he went upstairs on 
tiptoe, treading as lightly as if he knew she 
was asleep and he feared to waken her. Stand- 
ing by the bed, he looked about him in an aim- 
less, helpless way, his eyes resting finally on 
the counterpane, and the pillow he had placed 
every night for her on her side of the bed. It 
was yellow and soiled now. In the same half- 
dazed, dreamy way he stepped to the closet, 
opened the door cautiously, and laid his hand 
upon her dresses, which hung where she had 
left them, smoothing them softly with his rough 
fingers. He could easily have persuaded him- 
self (had she been dead) that her spirit was 
near him, whispering to him, leading him about, 
her hand in his. 

As he stood handling the dresses, with their 
little sleeves and skirts, all the paternal seemed 
suddenly to come out in him. She was no longer 
his wife, no longer the keeper of his house, no 
longer the custodian of his good name. She 
was his child, his daughter, his own flesh and 
blood, — one who had gone astray, one who had 
pleaded for forgiveness, and who was now alone 
in the world, with every door closed against her 
but Captain Joe’s. 


354 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

In the brightness of this new light of pity in 
him a great weight seemed lifted from his heart. 
His own sorrow and loneliness seemed trivial 
and selfish beside hers. He big and strong, fear- 
less to go and come, able to look every man in 
the face ; and she a timid girl, shrinking, fright- 
ened, insulted, hiding even from those who loved 
her. What sort of man was he to shut his door 
in her face and send her shuddering down the 
road ? 

With these new thoughts there came a sud- 
den desire to help, to reach out his arms toward 
her, to stand up and defend her, — defend her, 
out in the open, before all the people. 

Catching up bis hat, he hurried from the 
house and walked briskly down the road. It 
was Betty’s hour for coming home. Since her 
encounter with Carleton there had been few 
evenings in the week he had not, with one ex- 
cuse or another, loitered along the road, hiding 
behind the fish-house until she passed, watching 
her until she reached the swinging gate. Soon 
the residents up and down the road began to 
time his movements. “Here comes Caleb,” 
they would say; “Betty ain’t far off. Ain’t 
nothin’ goin’ to touch her as long as Caleb ’s 
round.” 

This watchful care had had its effect. Not 
only had Captain Joe and Aunty Bell taken her 
part, but Caleb was looking after her too. 
When this became common talk the little re- 


THE SWINGING GATE 


355 


maining tattle ceased. Better not talk about 
Betty, the gossips said among themselves ; Ca- 
leb might hear it. 

When the diver reached the top of the hill 
overlooking Captain Joe’s cottage, his eye fell 
upon Betty’s slight figure stepping briskly up 
the hill, her shawl drawn tightly about her 
shoulders, her hat low down on her face. She 
had passed the willows and was halfway to the 
swinging gate. Caleb quickened his pace and 
walked straight toward her. 

She saw him coming, and stopped in sudden 
fright. For an instant she wavered, undecided 
whether she would turn and run, or brave it out 
and pass him. If she could only get inside the 
garden before he reached her ! As she neared 
the gate she heard his footsteps on the road, 
and could see from under the rim of her hat the 
rough shoes and coarse trousers cement-stained 
up as far as his knees. Only once since she 
had gone off with Lacey had she been so close 
to him. 

Gathering all her strength she sprang forward, 
her hand on the swinging gate. 

1 ’ll hold it back, child,” came a low, sweet 
voice, and an arm was stretched out before her. 
“ It shan’t slam to and hurt ye.” 

He was so close she could have touched him. 
She saw, even in her agony, the gray, fluffy 
beard and the wrinkled, weather-stained throat 
with the unbuttoned collar of the flannel shirt. 


356 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

She saw, too, the big brown hand, as it rested 
on the gate. 

She did not see his eyes. She dared not look 
so high. 

As she entered the kitchen door she gave a 
hurried glance behind. He was following her 
slowly, as if in deep thought ; his hands behind 
his back, his eyes on the ground. 

Aunty Bell was bending over the stove when 
Betty dashed in. 

“ It ’s Caleb ! He ’s coming in ! Oh, aunty, 
don’t let him see me — please — please ! ” 

The little woman turned quickly, startled at 
the sudden interruption. 

“He don’t want ye, child.” The girl’s ap- 
pearance alarmed her. She is not often this 
way, she thought. 

“He does — he does. He spoke to me — 
Oh, where shall I go ” she moaned, wringing 
her hands, her whole body trembling like one 
with an ague. 

“ Go nowhere,” answered Aunty Bell in de- 
cided tones. “ Stay where ye be. I ’ll go see 
him. ’T ain’t nothin’, child, only somethin’ 
for the cap’n.” She had long since given up 
all hope of Caleb’s softening. 

As she spoke the diver’s slow and measured 
step could be heard sounding along the plank 
walk. 

Aunty Bell let down her apron and stepped 
to the door. Betty crept behind the panels, 


357 




THE SWINGING GATE 

watching him through the crack, stifling her 
breath lest she should miss his first word. Oh, 
the music of his voice at the gate ! Not his 
words, but the way he spoke, — the gentleness, 
the pity, the compassion of it all ! As this 
thought surged through her mind she grew 
calmer ; a sudden impulse to rush out and throw 
herself at his feet took possession of her. He 
surely could not repel her when his voice car- 
ried such tenderness to her heart. A great 
sob rose in her throat. The measured, slow 
step came closer. 

At this instant she heard the outer gate 
swing to a second time with a resounding bang, 
and Captain Joe’s voice calling, Git yer dress, 
Caleb, quick as God’ll let- ye ! Train through 
the Medford draw an’ two men drownded. I ’ve 
been lookin’ fur ye everywhere.” 

“ Who says so ? ” answered Caleb calmly 
without moving. 

“Mr. Sanford’s sent the yacht. His nig- 
ger ’s outside now. Hurry, I tell ye ; we ain’t 
got a minute.” 

Betty waited, her heart throbbing. Caleb 
paused for an instant and looked earnestly 
and hesitatingly toward the house. Then he 
turned quickly and followed Captain Joe. 

Aunty Bell waited until she saw both men 
cross the road on their way to the dock. Then 
she went in to find Betty, 

She was still crouched behind the door, her 


358 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

limbs trembling beneath her. On her face was 
the dazed look of one who had missed, without 
knowing why, some great crisis. 

“Don’t cry, child,” said the little woman, pat- 
ting her cheek. “ It ’s all right. I knowed he 
didn’t come for ye.” 

“ But, Aunty Bell, Aunty Bell,” she sobbed, 
as she threw her arms about her neck, “ I 
wanted him so.” 


CHAPTER XXV 


UNDER THE PITILESS STARS 

The purple twilight had already settled over 
Medford harbor when the yacht with Captain 
Joe and Caleb on board glided beneath the 
wrecked trestle with its toppling cars, and 
made fast to one of the outlying spiles of the 
draw. As the yacht’s stern swung in toward 
the sunken caboose which coffined the bodies 
of the drowned men, a small boat put off from 
the shore and Sanford sprang aboard. He had 
succeeded in persuading the section boss in 
charge of the wrecking gang to delay wrecking 
operations until Caleb could get the bodies, 
insisting that it was inhuman to disturb the 
wreck until they were recovered. As the yacht 
was expected every moment and the services of 
the diver would be free, the argument carried 
weight. 

Everything is ready, sir,” said Captain Joe, 
as Sanford walked aft to meet him. We Ve 
’iled up the cylinders, an’ the pump can git to 
work in a minute. I ’ll tend Caleb ; I know 
how he likes his air. Come, Caleb, git inter 
yer dress ; this tide’s on the turn.” 


36 o CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

The three men walked along the yacht’s 
deck to where the captain had been oiling the 
air-pump. It had been lifted clear of its wooden 
case and stood near the rail, its polished brasses 
glistening in the light of a ship’s lantern slung to 
the ratlines. Sprawled over a deck settee lay 
the rubber diving-dress, — body, arms, and legs 
in one piece, like a suit of seamless underwear, 
— and beside it the copper helmet, a trunkless 
head with a single staring eye. The air-hose 
and life-line, together with the back-plate and 
breast-D^ate of lead and the iron-shod shoes, lay 
on the de:k. 

Caleb placed his folded coat on a camp-stool, 
drew off his shoes, tucked his trousers into his 
stocking legs, and began twisting himself into 
his rubber dress, Sanford helping him with the 
arms and neckpiece. Captain Joe, meanwhile, 
overhauled the plates and loosened the fasten- 
ings of the weighted shoes. 

With the screwing on of Caleb’s helmet and 
the tightening of his face-plate, the crowd in- 
creased. The news of the coming diver had 
preceded the arrival of the yacht, and the tres- 
tle and shores were lined with people. 

When Caleb, completely equipped, stepped 
on the top round of the ladder fastened to the 
yacht’s side, the crowd climbed hurriedly over 
the wrecked cars to the stringers of the trestle 
to get a better view of the huge man-fish with 
its distorted head and single eye, and its long 


UNDER THE PITILESS STARS 361 

antennae of hose and life-line. Such a sight 
would be uncanny even when the blazing sun 
burnished the diver’s polished helmet and the 
one eye of the face-plate glared ominously ; but 
at night, under the wide sky, with only a single 
swinging lamp to illumine the gloomy shadows, 
the man-fish became a thing of dread, — a 
ghoulish spectre who prowled over foul and 
loathsome things, and who rose from the slime 
of deep bottoms only to breathe and sink again. 

Caleb slowly descended the yacht’s ladder, 
one iron-shod foot at a time, until the water 
reached his armpits. Then he swung himself 
clear, and the black, oily ooze closed over him. 

Captain Joe leaned over the yacht’s rail, the 
life-line wound about his wrist, his sensitive 
hand alert for the slightest nibble of the man- 
fish. These nibbles are the unspoken words of 
the diver below to his “tender” above. His 
life often depends on these being instantly 
understood and answered. 

For the diver is more than amphibious ; he 
is twice-bodied, — one man under water, one 
man above, with two heads and four hands. 
The connecting links between these two bodies 
— these Siamese twins — are the life-line and 
signal-cord through which they speak to each 
other, and the air-hose carrying their life-breath. 

As Caleb dropped out of sight the crew 
crowded to the yacht’s rail, straining their eyes 
in the gloom. . In the steady light of the lantern 


/ 


362 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

they could see the cord tighten and slacken as 
the diver felt his way among the wreckage, or 
sank to the bottom. They could follow, too, 
the circle of air bubbles floating on the water 
above where he worked. No one spoke ; no 
one moved. An almost deathly stillness pre- 
vailed. The only sounds were the wheezing of 
the air-pump turned by the sailor, and the 
swish of the life-line cutting through the water 
as the diver talked to his tender. With these 
were mingled the unheeded sounds of the night 
and of the sea, — the soft purring of the tall 
grasses moving gently to and fro in the night- 
wind, and the murmuring of the sluggish water 
stirred by the rising tide and gurgling along the 
yacht’s side on its way to the stern. 

“Has he found them yet. Captain Joe.?” 
Sanford asked, after some moments, under his 
breath. 

“Not yet, sir. He’s been through one car, 
an’ is now crawlin’ through t’other. He says 
they’re badly broke up. Run that air-hose 
overboard, sir ; let it all go ; he wants it all. 
Thank ye. He says the men are in their bunks 
at t’other end, if anywheres; that ’s it, sir.” 

There came a quick double jerk, answered 
by one long pull. 

“More air, sir , — more air!'' Captain Joe 
cried in a quick, rising voice. “ So-o, that ’ll 
do.” 

The crew looked on in astonishment. The 


UNDER THE PITILESS STARS 363 

talk of the man-fish was like the telephone 
talk of a denizen from another world. , 

A quarter of an hour passed. Not a single 
tremor had been felt along the life-line, nor had 
Captain Joe moved from his position on the 
rail. His eye was still on the circle of bubbles 
that rose and were lost in the current. Sanford 
grew uneasy. 

“ What ’s he doing now, captain .? ” he asked 
in an anxious voice. 

“ Don’t know, sir ; ain’t heard from him in 
some time.” 

“ Ask him.” 

“No, sir ; better let him alone. He might 
be crawlin’ through somewheres ; might tangle 
him up if I moved the line. He ’s got to feel 
his way, sir. It ’s black as mud down there. 
If the men warn’t in the caboose he would n’t 
never find ’em at night.” 

A quick, sharp jerk from under the surface 
now swished through the water, followed by a 
series of strong, rapid pulls, — seesaw pulls, as 
if some great fish were struggling with the 
line. 

“ He ’s got one of ’em, sir,” said the captain, 
with sudden animation. “ Says that ’s all. 
He’s been through two cars an’ felt along 
every inch o’ the way. If there ’s another, he ’s 
got washed out o’ the door.” 

As he spoke the air-hose slackened and the 
life-line began to sag. 


364 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

Captain Joe turned quickly to Sanford. 
^‘Pull in that hose, Mr. Sanford,” hauling in 
the slack of the life-line himself. He ’s a-comin’ 
up ; he’ll bring him with him.” 

These varied movements on the yacht stirred 
the overhanging crowd into action. They 
hoped the diver was coming up ; they hoped, 
too, he would bring the dead man. His appear- 
ing with his awful burden would be less terrible 
than not knowing what the man-fish was doing. 
The crew of the yacht crowded still closer to 
the rail ; this fishing at night for the dead had 
a fascination they could not resist. Some of 
them even mounted the ratlines, and others 
ran aft to see the diver rise from the deep sea. 

In a moment more the black water heaved in 
widening circles, and Caleb’s head and shoulders 
were thrust up within an oar’s length of the 
yacht. The light of the lantern fell upon his 
wet helmet and extended arm. 

The hand clutched a man’s boot. 

Attached to the boot were a pair of blue 
overalls and a jacket. The head of the drowned 
man hung down in the water. The face was 
hidden. 

Captain Joe leaned forward, lowered the 
lantern that Caleb might see the ladder, reeled 
in the life-line hand over hand, and dragged the 
diver and his burden to the foot of the ladder. 
Sanford seized a boat-hook, and, reaching down, 
held the foot close to the yacht’s side ; then a 


UNDER THE PITILESS STARS 365 

sailor threw a noose of marline twine around 
the boot. The body was now safe from the 
treacherous tide. 

Caleb raised himself slowly until his helmet 
was just above the level of the deck. Captain 
Joe removed the lead plates from his breast 
and back, and unscrewed his glass face-plate, 
letting out his big beard and letting in the cool 
night-air. 

“ Any more down there ? ” he cried, his 
mouth close to Caleb’s face as he spoke. 

Caleb shook his head inside the copper hel- 
met. No ; don’t think so. Guess ye thought 
I was a-goin’ to stay all night, did n’t ye ? I 
had ter crawl through two cars ’fore I got him ; 
when I found him he was under a tool-chest. 
One o’ them lower cars, I see, has got its end 
stove out.” 

“ Jes’ ’s I told ye, Mr. Sanford,” said Captain 
Joe in a positive tone; “t’other body went out 
with the tide.” 

The yacht, with the rescued dead man laid 
on the deck and covered with a sheet, steamed 
across the narrow channel, reversed her screw, 
and touched the fender spiles of her wharf as 
gently as one would tap an egg. Sanford, who, 
now that the body was found, had gone ahead 
in the small boat in search of the section boss, 
was waiting on the wharf for the arrival of the 
yacht. 


/ 


366 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

“There’s more trouble, Captain Joe,” he 
called. “ There ’s a man here that the scow 
saved from the wreck. Mr. Smear ly thought 
he would pull through, but the doctor who ’s 
with him says he can’t live an hour. His spine 
is injured. Major Slocomb and Mr. Smearly 
are now in Stonington in search of a surgeon. 
The section boss tells me his name is Williams, 
and that he works in the machine shops. Bet- 
ter look at him and see if you know him.” 

Captain Joe and Caleb walked toward the 
scow. She was moored close to the grassy 
slope of the shore. On her deck stood half a 
dozen men, — one a diver sent by the manager 
of the road, and who had arrived with his dress 
and equipment too late to be of service. 

The injured man lay in the centre. Beside 
him, seated on one of Mrs. Leroy’s piazza 
chairs, was the village doctor ; his hand was on 
the patient’s pulse. One of Mrs. Leroy’s maids 
knelt at the wounded man’s feet, wringing out 
cloths that had been dipped in buckets of boil- 
ing water brought by the men servants. Mrs. 
Leroy and Helen and one or two guests sat 
a short distance away on the lawn. Over by 
the stables swinging lights could be seen glim- 
mering here and there, as if men were hur- 
rying. There were lights, too, on the dock 
and on the scow’s deck ; one hung back of the 
sufferer’s head, where it could not shine on his 
eyes. 


UNDER THE PITILESS STARS 367 

The wounded man, who had been stripped of 
his wet clothes, lay on a clean mattress. Over 
him was thrown a soft white blanket. His 
head was propped up on a pillow taken from 
one of Mrs. Leroy’s beds. She had begged to 
have him moved to the house, but the doctor 
would not consent until the surgeon arrived. 
So he kept him out in the warm night -air, 
under the stars. 

Dying and dead men were no new sight to 
Captain Joe and Caleb. The captain had sat by 
too many wounded men knocked breathless by 
falling derricks, and seen their life - blood ooze 
away, and Caleb had dragged too many sailors 
from sunken cabins. This accident was not 
serious ; only three killed and one wounded out 
of twenty. In the morning their home people 
would come and take them away, — in cloth- 
covered boxes, or in plain pine. That was all. 

With these thoughts in his mind, and in obe- 
dience to Sanford’s request. Captain Joe walked 
toward the sufferer, nodded to the Medford 
doctor sitting beside him, picked up the lantern 
which hung behind the man’s head, and turned 
the light full on the pale face. Caleb stood at 
one side talking with the captain of the scow. 

“He ain’t no dago,” .said Captain Joe, as he 
turned to the doctor. “ Looks to me like one 
o’ them young fellers what ’s ” — He stopped 
abruptly. Something about the injured man 
attracted him. 


368 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

He dropped on one knee beside the bed, 
pushed back the matted hair from the man’s 
forehead, and examined the skin carefully. 

For some moments he remained silent, scan- 
ning every line in the face. Then he rose to 
his feet, folded his arms across his chest, his 
eyes still fastened on the sufferer, and said 
slowly and thoughtfully to himself, — 

“Well, I ’m damned ! ” 

The doctor bent his head in expectation, 
eager to hear the captain’s next words, but the 
captain was too absorbed to notice the gesture. 
For some minutes he continued looking at the 
dying man. 

“Come here, Caleb!” he called, beckoning to 
the diver. “ Hold the lantern close. Who ’s 
that ” His voice sank almost to a whisper. 
“ Look in his face.” 

“ I don’t know, cap’n ; I never see him afore.” 

At the sound of the voices the head on the 
pillow turned, and the man half opened his 
eyes, and groaned heavily. He was evidently 
in great pain, — too great for the opiates wholly 
to deaden. 

“ Look agin, Caleb ; see that scar on his 
cheek ; that ’s where the Screamer hit ’im. 
That ’s Bill Lacey.” 

Caleb caught up the lantern as Captain Joe 
had done, and turned the light full on the dying 
man’s face. Slowly and carefully he examined 
every feature, — the broad forehead, deep-sunk 


UNDER THE PITILESS STARS 369 

eyes, short, curly hair about the temples, and 
the mustache and close-trimmed beard, which 
had been worn as a disguise, no doubt, along 
with his new name of Williams. In the same 
searching way his eye passed over the broad 
shoulders and slender, supple body outlined 
under the clinging blanket, and so on down to 
the small, well-shaped feet that the kneeling 
maid was warming. 

“ It ’s him,” he said quietly, stepping back to 
the mast, and folding his arms behind his back, 
while his eyes were fixed on the drawn face. 

During this exhaustive search Captain Joe 
followed every expression that swept over the 
diver’s face. How would the death of this man 
affect Betty.? 

With an absorbed air, the captain picked up an 
empty nail-keg, and crossing the deck sat down 
beside the mattress, his hands on his knees, 
watching the sufferer. As he looked at the 
twitching muscles of the face and the fading 
color, the bitterness cherished for months against 
this man faded away. He saw only the punish- 
ment that had come, its swiftness and its sure- 
ness. Then another face came before him, — a 
smaller one, with large and pleading eyes. 

‘‘ Ain’t no chance for him, I s’pose .? ” he said 
to the doctor in a low tone. 

The only answer was an ominous shake of 
the head and a significant rubbing of the edge 
of the doctor’s hand across the waist-line of the 


370 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

captain’s back. Captain Joe nodded his head ; 
he knew, — the spine was broken. 

The passing of a spirit is a sacred and mo- 
mentous thing, an impressive spectacle even to 
rough men who have seen it so often. 

One by one the watchers on the scow with- 
drew. Captain Joe and the doctor remained 
beside the bed ; Caleb stood a few feet away, 
leaning against the mast, the full glow of the 
lantern shedding a warm light over his big 
frame and throwing his face into shadow. 
What wild, turbulent thoughts surged through 
his brain no one knew but himself. Beads of 
sweat had trickled down his face, and he loos- 
ened his collar to breathe the better. 

Presently the captain sank on his knee again 
beside the mattress. His face had the firm, 
determined expression of one whose mind has 
been made up on some line of action that has 
engrossed his thought vS. He put his mouth 
close to the sufferer’s ear. 

“It’s me, Billy, — Cap’n Joe. Do ye know 
me.?” 

The eyes opened slowly and fastened them 
selves for an instant upon the captain’s face, 
A dull gleam of recognition stirred in their 
glassy depths ; then the lids closed wearily. 
The glimpse of Lacey’s mind was but momen- 
tary, yet to the captain it was unmistakable 
The brain was still alert. 

He leaned back and beckoned to Caleb. 


UNDER THE PITILESS STARS 371 

“Come over ’ere,” he said in a low whisper, 
“an’ git down close to ’im. He ain’t got long 
ter live. Don’t think o’ what he done to you ; 
git that out o’ yer head ; think o’ where he ’s 
a-goin’. Don’t let him go with that on yer 
mind ; it ain’t decent, an’ it ’ll haunt ye. Git 
down close to ’im, an’ tell ’im ye ain’t got nothin’ 
agin ’im ; do it for me, Caleb. Ye won’t never 
regret it.” 

The diver knelt in a passive, listless way, as 
one kneels in a church to the sound of an altar 
bell. The flame of the lantern fell on his face 
and shaggy beard, lighting up the earnest, 
thoughtful eyes and tightly pressed lips. 

“Pull yerself together, Billy, jes’ once fur 
me,” said Captain Joe in a half-coaxing voice. 
“ It ’s Caleb bendin’ over ye ; he wants to tell 
ye somethin’.” 

The sunken, shriveled lids parted quickly, 
and the eyes rested for a moment on the 
diver’s face. The lips moved, as if the man 
were about to speak. But no words came. 

Over the cheeks and nose there passed a con- 
vulsive twitching, — the neck stiffened, the head 
straightened Tack upon the pillow. 

Then the jaw fell. 

“ He ’s dead,” said the doctor, laying his hand 
over the man’s heart. 

Captain Joe drew the blanket over the dead 
face, rose from his knees, and, with his arm in 
Caleb’s, left the scow and walked slowly toward 


372 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 


the yacht. The doctor gathered up his reme- 
dies, gave some directions to the watchman, 
and joined Mrs. Leroy and the ladies on the 
lawn. 

Only the watchman on the scow was left, 
and the silent stars, — stern, unflinching, pit- 
iless, like the eyes of many judges. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


CALEB TRIMS HIS LIGHTS 

Caleb and Captain Joe sat on the yacht’s 
deck on their way back to Keyport. The air- 
pump had been lifted into its case, and the 
dress and equipment had been made ready to 
be put ashore at the paraphernalia dock. 

The moon had risen, flooding the yacht with 
white light and striping the deck with the clear- 
cut, black shadows of the stanchions. On the 
starboard bow burned Keyport Light, and be- 
yond flashed Little Gull, a tiny star on the far- 
off horizon. 

Caleb leaned back on a settee, his eyes fixed 
on the glistening sea. He had not spoken a 
word since his eyes rested on Lacey’s face. 

“ Caleb,” said Captain Joe, laying his hand on 
the diver’s knee, “mebbe ye don’t feel right to 
me fur sayin’ what I did, but I did n’t want ye 
to let ’im go an’ not tell ’im ye hadn’t no 
hatred in yer heart toward ’im. It ’d come 
back to plague ye, and ye Ve had sufferin’ 
enough already ’long o’ him. He won’t worry 
you nor her no more. He’s lived a mean, 
stinkin’ life, an’ he’s died ’s I alius knowed he 


374 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

would, — with nobody’s hand ter help ’im. 
Caleb,” — he paused for an instant and looked 
into the diver’s face, — ‘^you ’n me ’s knowed 
each other by an’ large a many a year; ye 
know what I want ye to do ; ye know what 
hurts me an’ has ever sence the child come 
back. He ’s out o’ yer hands now. God ’s 
punished him. Be good to yerself an’ to her, 
an’ forgive her. Take Betty back.” 

The old man turned and slipped his hand 
over Captain Joe’s, — a hard, horny hand, with 
a heart-throb in every finger-tip. 

Cap’ll Joe, I know how ye feel. There ain’t 
nothin’ between us ; but yer wrong about him. 
As I stood over him to-night I fit it all out with 
myself. If he’d ’a’ lived long ’nough I’d ’a’ 
told him, jes’ ’s ye wanted me to. But yer 
ain’t never had this thing right ; I ain’t a-blamin’ 
her.” 

“Then take ’er home, an’ quit this foolish 
life ye ’re leadin’, an’ her heart a-breakin’ every 
day for love o’ ye. Ain’t ye lonely ’nough with- 
out her ? God knows she is without you.” 

Caleb slowly withdrew his hand from Captain 
Joe’s and put his arms behind his head, making 
a rest of his interlocked fingers. 

“ When ye say she ’s a-breakin’ her heart for 
me, Cap’n Joe, ye don’t know it all.” His eyes 
looked up at the sky as he spoke. “ ’T ain’t 
that I ain’t willin’ to take ’er back. I alius 
wanted to help her, an’ I alius wanted to take 


CALEB TRIMS HIS LIGHTS 375 

care of her, — not to have her take care o’ me. 
I made up my mind this morhin’, when I see 
how folks was a-treatin’ ’er, to ask ’er to come 
home. If I’d treat ’er right, they’d treat ’er 
right ; I know it. But I warn’t the man for 
her, an’ she don’t love me now no more ’n 
she did. That’s what hurts me an’ makes 
me afraid. Now I ’ll tell ye why I know she 
don’t love me ; tell ye something ye don’t know 
at all,” — he turned his head as he spoke, and 
looked the captain full in the eyes, his voice 
shaking, — an’ when I tell ye I want to say 
I ain’t a-blamin’ her.” The words that followed 
came like the slow ticking of a clock. “ He ’s 
— been — a-writin’ — to ’er — ever since — she 
left ’im. Bert Simmons — showed me the let- 
ters.” 

You found that out, did ye? ” said Captain 
Joe, a sudden angry tremor in his voice. “Ye ’re 
right ; he has ! Been a-writin’ to her ever sence 
she left him, — sometimes once a month, some- 
times once a week, an’ lately about every day.” 

Caleb raised his head. This last was news 
to him. 

“ And that ain’t all. Every one o’ them let- 
ters she ’s brought to me, jes’ ’s fast as she 
got ’em, an’ I locked ’em in my sea-chest along 
o’ the money ye gin her every week, an’ the 
money and letters are there now. An’ there ’s 
more to it yet. T/iere aint nary seal broke on 
any one of Lacey s. Whoever ’s been a-lyin’ to 


376 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

ye, Caleb, ain’t told ye one half o’ what he 
ought to know.” 

Captain Joe swung back his garden gate and 
walked quickly up the plank walk, his big, 
burly body swaying as he moved. The house 
was dark, except for a light in the kitchen 
window, and another in Betty’s room. He 
saw Aunty Bell in a chair by the table, but he 
hurried by, on his way upstairs, without a 
word. Caleb followed with slow and measured 
step. When he reached the porch. Aunty Bell 
had left her seat and was standing on the mat. 

“ Why, Caleb, be ye cornin’ in too ? ” she 
said. “ I ’ll git supper for both o’ ye. Guess 
ye ’re tuckered out.” 

“ I don’t want no supper,” he answered 
gravely, without looking at her. “ I ’ll go into 
the settin’-room an’ wait, if ye '11 let me.” 

She opened the door silently for him, won- 
dering if he was in one of his moods. The 
only light in the room came from the street- 
lamp, stenciling the vines on the drawn shades. 

“ I ’ll fetch a light for ye, Caleb,” she said 
quietly, and turned toward the kitchen. In 
the hall she paused, her knees shaking, a 
prayer in her heart. Captain Joe and Betty 
were coming down the stairs, Betty’s face hid- 
den on his shoulder, her trembling fingers 
clinging to his coat. 

“Ain’t nothin’ to skeer ye, child,” the cap- 


CALEB TRIMS HIS LIGHTS 377 

tain said, patting the girl’s cheek as he stopped 
at the threshold. It ’s all right. He ’s in 
there waitin’,” and he closed the door upon 
them. 

Then he walked straight toward Aunty Bell, 
two big tears rolling down his cheeks, and, lay- 
ing his hand upon her shoulder, said, ‘‘Caleb’s 
got his lights trimmed, an’ Betty 's found har- 
bor. The little gal ’s home.” 


In another room, some miles away, before 
a window that looked upon the sea, sat a wo- 
man, with cheeks tight pressed between her 
hands. The low - lying drowsy moon shed a 
white light on her thoughtful face and silvered 
the fluff of loosened hair that fell about her 
shoulders. She had sat there for hours — 
long after the house was silent. Outside the 
world was still : only the lapping of little wave- 
tongues along the shore was heard ; the croak- 
ing of frogs in the marsh, and the cry of the 
night-hawk circling as he flew. 

On the desk beside her lay an open letter 
with a Paris postmark. It had come by the 
late mail. 

Once in a while her eyes would rest on the 
shimmer of silver framing the Ledge. Then 
some remembrance of the day would rush over 
her : the anxious waiting for the verdict ; San- 
ford’s upraised hand as he entered the cabin ; 


378 CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER 

the gaunt outline of the wrecked trestle and the 
ghostly lantern that burned above the head of 
the dying man. From out the turmoil of these 
contending memories one face shone clear and 
strong, with fixed and questioning eyes. 

In that one look she had read his inmost 
depth. She had caught the sudden uplifting of 
the lids, the wondering glance at her joyous 
words of praise, and the shadow that followed. 

“ It is best so,” she whispered to herself at 
last. It is the only way. I did not mean to 
hurt him, — only to help. Help him — and 
me.” 

With a tired, listless air, she rose from her 
seat, folded the letter slowly, and locked it in 
her desk. 


THE END. 


TIVERTON TALES 

By ALICE BROWN 

\2mOf $K50 

All the quiet beauty and perfect naturalness of her previous 
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One and all gems in the realm of short-story writing,— 
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HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
are now the publishers of Miss Brown’s previous book 

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which has had a remarkable popularity. 
i2mo, ^1.50 


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By ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 

i6mOf $L25 

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The temperance “ cause ” has had no more powerful and 
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is found in “ A Singular Life.” — Union Signal (Chicago), 

Sold by all Booksellers. Sent, postpaid, by 

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II East 17th Street, New York, 


THE BAHLE OE THE STRONG 

By GILBERT PARKER 

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“ The Battle of the Strong ” is another characteristic success 
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splendid story, so splendidly told, will be read with avidity. — 
St. James's Gazette (London). 


THE STORY OF AN UNTOLD LOVE 

By PAUL LEICESTER FORD 

Author of ^^Thc Honorable Peter Stirling.^ 

J6mo, $L25 

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ican. 

It is all most interesting. — The Bookman (New York). 

Sold by all Booksellers. Sent, postpaid, by 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. Boston, 

II East i7tli street, New York. 



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